Sentimental Journey
by Agent Orange
Summary: The crew finds themselves split up and ticked off on the holiest of nights. Can a holiday miracle save them? Heh. Not likely. Completed.
1. How I Love That Christmas Feeling

To all the groupies, whack jobs and cats down the crazy river: Happy Holidays

Authors Notes: Time frame? I guess it would be after the movie (which I haven't seen) but before The Real Folk Blues, but I wouldn't think about it too hard. Oh, and I've decided it snows on Ganymede and Mars. I wanted snow. 

Author's Ramblings: I wrote this story in June. It was after a heated late night debate with my friends over which cartoon characters had the best Christmas special. I believe in the end Yogi Bear drummed up the most support but I for one have always been fascinated with the idea of Smurfs celebrating the birth of Christ. Anyhoo, since I had just come off my stint with Bebop at the time, I started thinking about how a Christmas special would look in the Bebop world and started screwing around. I started to enjoy myself and I ended up finishing it. But I didn't want to post it until Christmas time cause well…duh. So I guess this is the lost AO fic. I suppose it might have been best to let it stay lost, but hell. I never was very bright. 

So without further ado…

How I Love that Christmas Feeling

__

How I love that Christmas feeling  
How I treasure its friendly glow  
See the way a stranger greets you  
Just as though you'd met him Christmases ago  


Jet was trying to remember for the life of him what Christmas felt like. He kept hearing people say that. It feels like Christmas. What the hell did a day feel like? Certain weekdays have a feel but that was more of a rhythm than a feeling, really. And all days felt the same since he left the Force. 

He remembered saying things like that, once upon a time, but now it seemed like such a ridiculous idea. "Yo, Spike."

"Hmm?"

"What the hell does Christmas feel like?"

Spike raised an eyebrow, as the question was both slightly out of character and apropos to nothing that he could see. "I dunno," he ran his hand through his unruly mop. "Warm and squishy?" 

Jet had assumed as much. "Does it feel like Christmas?" he asked.

Spike took a lazy glance around the bar they were sitting in before his focus drifted back to the fly that had just landed on the rim of his Collins glass. He watched it dance precariously around the edge before it decided to investigate the contents a little more closely. It buzzed down to the alcohol, got it's wings wet and plopped with a sickening little sploosh in the middle of Spike's drink, kicking frantically for awhile before stopping altogether. It was either drunk or dead. With the shit Spike was drinking, it would be hard to tell the difference. The bounty hunter sighed as he dumped out what was left of his beverage in the ashtray, making a lovely whiskey, butt and dead bug soup. "Uh…no," he said flatly. 

"Yeah," Jet sighed. "I didn't think so."

They both shifted their attention to a scuffle that had broken out on the other side of the room. It was a real doozy. Bottles being broken and what not. Spike narrowed his eyes a bit at the spectacle in front of him. "Dammit," he muttered. "That big guy is our man, isn't he?" His apprehension was not so much over the size of the opponent as it was over physical exertion. He was kind of drunk and truthfully still a bit hung over from the previous night. He really was not in the mood for effort.

Jet squinted in a similar fashion, about as eager to break a sweat as his partner, and then checked the comm. "Yep, that's him. Well," he shrugged. "Guess you better go get him."

Spike looked mildly offended. "Why do I have to get him?"

"Because," Jet said matter of factly. "You're the brawn."

Spike quickly sized up his own appearance in comparison to his roommate's and decided that he was not going to simply accept that lot in life. Not if it meant he had to leave his seat. "So what does that make you?" He lit another cigarette to show he was getting comfortable.

"The brains," Jet replied, downing the last of his Scotch.

"Ed's the brains," Spike said quite seriously. "She is definitely the brains."

"No. She's the tech."

"Same difference."

"No, it's not!" Jet jumped at the sound of his own voice, as he had not meant to whine at such a pitch. He cleared his throat and continued. "I am the brains. I'm the strategist. The sleuth. Ed deals with the hardware. Two totally different roles."

"Whoa, whoa," Spike was fully engaged now. There was no way Jet was going to weasel out of this on semantics. "You can't have subdivisions. Ed is the brains. Faye is the mouth. We can't both be the brawn." Spike eyed up the growing conflict in the corner as he was making his case. There was furniture being hurled now. He hated it when people started using chairs. It was so Hollywood.

"Ok." Jet admitted inwardly that he might have had a point on the subdivision thing. But now he was getting nervous. If he wasn't the brain and he wasn't the brawn, what was there left to be? "So what are _you_?" he asked, seeing what Spike could come up with.

Spike seemed thrown by the question for a second and then a goofy grin spread across his face. "I am the sex appeal."

"Aw, Christ," Jet groaned and rolled his eyes. 

Spike laughed at his own stupidity before finally suggesting, "Shoot for it." 

"Best of three."

After the third battle came to a close, Spike found himself on the receiving end of Jet's well-timed paper. Frankly, Spike never quite understood how paper beat rock. All right, so the rock was covered. But the rock could quite easily cover the paper and then what? Crumpled paper, that's what. The whole thing was ass backwards. But it wasn't really the time or the place to get into it. They had already met their stupid argument quota. So he just sighed heavily as he made his way over to the ruckus.

Jet leaned back in his seat as he watched his partner leap kamikaze style into the fray. No, it didn't feel much like Christmas at all, he thought as a thug yanked some garland off the wall and used it to strangle Spike. He wondered briefly where the hell it did feel like Christmas. He scooted slightly to the left to avoid being slammed by his partner's wayward body. Spike hit the table and rolled backwards into the booth. "How ya' doin?" Jet asked his feet, which were currently sticking up over the table at odd angles. 

"Peachy," Spike muttered before he shot to a standing position and returned swinging. Spike, reeling from the embarrassment of a near Death By Tinsel, only took about five more minutes to bring the guy in. The bounty wasn't huge but it was something. Enough to pay some spare bills and possibly feed them for a few days. It was like their Christmas bonus.

The two gentlemen sauntered tiredly back onto the Bebop, Spike sporting a nasty black eye he sort of dug. He thought it made him look those old school boxers with the missing teeth who'd kill ya if you looked at them cock-eyed. Plus, it took away most of his already questionable sex appeal, which secured his position as the brawn. He was really more comfortable with that role anyway. Let Jet be the sexy bitch. 

"So?" Faye asked casually as they dragged themselves into the lounge. She, Ed and the dog were draped over the couch, an ample spread of saltine crackers and peanut butter laid out before them. "Did you bring us anything good?"

Ed meant to ask, but her mouth was sealed shut with about five tablespoons of Jiff.

"_Us_," Jet grumbled. "_We_. I love how you throw those plural pronouns around as if they have any relevance. Spike and I got the bounty, therefore the money belongs to Spike and I. You don't factor into _us_."

Faye seemed unimpressed. "Fine," she yawned. "Be that way." But she did make it a point to whistle _You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch_ quite loudly on her way to the shower.


	2. We Need a Little Christmas

We Need A Little Christmas

__

For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder 

Grown a little sadder, grown a little older. 

And I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder,

I need a little Christmas…NOW! 

__

The Peanuts Christmas. That thing had to be 900 years old but there was something so arresting about the stilted, choppy voiceovers and crappy animation. Something so simple about it. So pure.

Jet sighed for a moment in deep thought, letting the magic of the Snoopy Dance envelop his tired brain. He was quickly jerked out of his trance, however, when he heard a collective and hearty chorus of profanity explode from the lounge. His roommates were carrying on about something. He couldn't even tell what. All of their voices blended together into a shrill hum. He leaned back out of his room to see if they were doing any sort of serious damage.

The girls were chasing the dog, which had a hot dog in his mouth. The last hot dog, if Jet had remembered correctly. He thought he remembered someone shot gun it. "Shot gun" was the closest thing to order they had on this ship. It was really the only indisputable law that governed the crew, and there were all sorts of complex collieries to it that Jet himself did not always understand. He did not shot gun things, since it was understood he had a right to everything. It seemed Ein also excused himself from the reign of the shot gun, which obviously upset his crew. A bit of their world had just crumbled beneath them. They chased the dog angrily around the lounge, not teaming up against him exactly but competing separately amongst themselves while Spike screamed at them to sit down and shut up. It seemed the initial shot gun was nulled on account of dog. It also didn't seem to bother them that the hot dog was already in the canine's mouth. 

His crew. Fighting over food with a dog. He looked back to the TV screen to see all of those sweet, pumpkin-headed children singing _Hark, the Herald Angels Sing_, then looked back to see Ed dive out of the way of a torpedoed paperback. Spike's paperback. Though Faye seemed to throw it without his permission which was yet another thing to be yelling over. Looking back and forth between the television and his dismal reality was about as jarring as comparing a children's choir to The Lord of the Flies. This was his Christmas. 

This was sick.

Human beings celebrated Christmas. It had pretty much gotten to the point that all human beings celebrated Christmas, whether they acknowledged the holiday's namesake or not. The whole birth of the Savior thing had been whittled down to "Family and Togetherness," which , let's face it, is an idea everyone could stand behind. And the retail industry could certainly stand behind it. So while (almost) all the human beings of the world were getting ready to gather their loved ones and eat poultry, his crew was clawing at each other to pry a hot dog out of a Welsh Corgi's mouth. They weren't human beings. They were animals. The creepy, ruthless kind that eat their own young. Well, Jet was tired of living his life like an on going National Geographic special. He was a human being, dammit. He jumped up out of his chair and walked right by the small Circus Maximus that was still in progress, grabbed his wallet out of his hiding spot, threw on his jacket and left the ship. He was having a Christmas whether his retarded roommates cooperated or not.

Jet took a few steps back as he looked the tree over. He had never gone tree shopping before but he had an idea. "Can I help you?" the proprietor asked eagerly.

"Uh…yeah. I was looking for something in a mid-priced pine, streamlined, high mileage. I'm gonna be taking this thing all the way back to Ganymede with me and I don't want it crap out on the way. Something practical but with a little style." Jet nodded as he spoke, trying to picture his dream tree in his mind.

"I think I have just the thing," the storeowner smiled as he took him over to a thinner but relatively full tree in the back of the lot. "We also carry it with a spoiler," he joked, but Jet was already preoccupied.

The tree as it was would not fit in the Bebop, which meant it was up to him to shape it. He circled the thing tentatively, trying to feel it out. There were certain trees in this world that were happy as they were and there were certain ones with a greater tree inside, itching to come out. Ones with artistic little flourishes in the branches and leaves that came to carefully manicured points. He decided that this was such a tree. "I'll take it," he grinned.

His partners did not even notice him shove the tree into the ship. They didn't really notice him arranging it in several different corners, looking for the perfect spot. They barely flinched when a branch got bent in the doorway and then snapped back, flinging a pinecone into Ein's dish. Big Shot was on, and all three of them were absolutely engrossed. Finally, Spike leaned his head lazily over the back of the couch as he spotted Jet with his new project. "Whatcha got there, Jet?" he said through a yawn. The girls both whipped their heads around in interest.

"It's a tree," Jet said flatly.

"I gathered as much," Spike smirked, rolling over on the couch so that he was on his stomach, his torso dangling over the back limply. "Why do you have it?"

Jet lowered his shears in exasperation. He really assumed this was a conclusion they could have leapt to on their own. "It's Christmas," he grumbled, going back to work on the touch ups. "This is what is known as a Christmas tree."

Faye and Ed looked at each other. "I didn't think we were Christmas-y type people," Faye mused.

"No, you are not Christmas-y people," Jet agreed whole-heartedly. "I, however, am. And considering I bought the tree with my money and decided to put it on my ship, I don't see why there needs to be anymore discussion about it."

The remaining Bebop crew just looked on in silence. "What's Jet gonna put on it?" Ed said finally.

"What do you mean?"

"A tree's gotta have stuff," she pointed out. "Doodads, watchamacallits, _knickknacks_, DOOHICKEYS!" she exclaimed with growing enthusiasm.

"Thingamajigs, even," Spike agreed with a warm sort of amusement. Jet's latest feeble grab for normalcy was striking him as funny.

Jet scratched his head. "I dunno. I haven't gotten that far."

Had Jet been more progressive, he would have realized that the First Annual Bebop Christmas Tree was actually a masterpiece in pop art. As it was, he thought it looked like utter crap. But it had temporarily caused his crew to behave in a sort of jovial way, which was enough to appease him for the time being.

The tree itself was adorned with just about anything they could dig up. Dog food cans, cigarette cartons, shot glasses, data disks, a tie, Faye's bra, Spike's boxer's, Ein's collar, Ed's goggles, a sock, a fork, a Raman noodle container, chop sticks, Styrofoam cups, a sauce pan lid, a Bic lighter, twine, and at the very top, teetering precariously on the highest branch, was a roll of toilet paper. Ed drew a star on the front of it with Faye's lipstick. 

Everyone sort of stared at it strangely when it was completed, not knowing exactly what to say. The truth was…it was sort of sweet. It was essentially their lives splattered on a bit of shrubbery. There was no denying it was a sad, pathetic life. But something about it hanging on a Christmas tree made it look so damn merry. It was weird. And so the crew, as they usually did when faced with issues of emotional significance, shrugged and went to bed.

"So what is all this?" Spike asked his partner later on the couch. Neither one found they could sleep that night, which in itself wasn't unusual.

"What?"

Spike gestured to their now slightly lop-sided tree with his foot. "The sudden interest in decking the halls? I've been your partner for three years now, and this is the first time you ever did anything like this. Are you like…wigging out?"

Jet snorted a bit. "Putting up a Christmas tree means I'm wigging out?"

Spike smiled. "Around here…it's a possibility."

"I'm not wigging out. I'm just getting old. And I'm starting to get a bit tired of living like a college kid. So I was thinking, Christmas is in four days."

"I know when Christmas is, Jet."

"Just checking. I wanna have like a real dinner. One with meat and where people actually sit down. And maybe like…plates."

"You mean no more crowding the pot like pigs at the trough?" Spike stretched out.

"Just for one night, you know? I just wanna…I dunno. Do something _normal_."

Spike blew a puff of smoke up at the ceiling. "So one proper meal for the sake of your sanity," he weighed it out in his mind. "It sounds fair."

"Then it's settled. We are gonna celebrate peace, love and togetherness, even if I have to kill every single one of you to do it."


	3. The Best of the Waitresses

The Best of the Waitresses

__

Deck those halls! 

Trim those trees!

Raise up cups of Christmas cheer

I just have to catch my breath

Christmas by myself this year

Faye had no idea why it was decided that she should do the shopping for Jet's stupid dinner. It was exactly that. Jet's stupid dinner. If Jet wasn't having some sort of emotional…thing, then there would be no dinner. She did not want to have the dinner. She was pretty sure Spike did not want to have the dinner. And Ed could probably care less. Sure, she and Spike would gladly eat the dinner, had it been prepared and served. And Ed will put anything in her mouth that is given to her. Faye knew this from experience. But to actually cook the dinner or purchase the requisite materials…that was entirely too much work.

This was the future, dammit! Wasn't she supposed to wake up into some brave new world with people popping insta-meal pellets or something? Where were the conveyor belt sidewalks? She grumbled as she struggled with her heels for a moment. Where was her robot slave? The future sucked!

And why did she have to be the one to go shopping? Because she was the woman, that's why! Sexist pricks. Like her haphazard, genetic acquisition of tits automatically made her an expert on the makings of good stuffing. And mashed potatoes. And whatever else was in this stupid sack. Jet was the resident old biddy on the ship, why couldn't he go out in the snow for this shit?

Because he's paying for it, giving you a room to sleep in and cooking the thing, a tiny voice said inside her. That made her feel guilty for a second until she realized other people were mooching off of him too and why couldn't they go?

All right. She knew the answer to that. Ed was a thirteen-year-old girl and Spike was a waste. He really was. If she needed something blown up good then she simply pointed the boy in the proper direction and said, "Make it so." But he was totally useless for anything else. She remembered the one time he had been sent out to get orange juice. Orange juice! And he had actually called her from the market totally dumbfounded over the concept of pulp. Did we want pulp? If so, how much pulp? And what was the difference between Homestyle and Grovestand? Did we want concentrated orange juice? Did we want juice with calcium? And despite her coaching, he still managed to come back with some overly expensive yuppie juice from some privately owned orchard that cost 20 woolongs more than normal orange juice. And Jet couldn't drink it anyway because it also had strawberries in it, and he was allergic. Spike was forbidden to go shopping after that. So that left her.

But it wasn't fair that she should be punished for her roommates' stupidity, which is why she thought she was totally justified in opening and drinking the bottle of wine she was instructed to buy. Worst case scenario, she'd be added to the Forbidden List. Actually, that was the best case scenario. There was no worst case scenario. "I am a genius!!" Faye roared in triumph before she lost her balance and had to pause momentarily to prop herself up against the wall. Damn, it was a far walk back to the ship. It didn't seem that far going to the store. True, she hadn't drunk half a bottle of wine before she left but she thought that could only help.

"Miss Valentine?"

Faye closed her eyes and muttered under her breath. Nothing good ever came of being called Miss Valentine. "What?" 

"This is for you." The man handed her an envelope. It looked for all the world like a Christmas card and it seemed to have a return address. Somewhere on Mars. She looked at the messenger curiously, but he just shrugged and hung around for a tip. Faye sighed as she pressed a cigarette in his outstretched hand and then set her groceries down to read the card. On the front was a picture of Santa in a sleigh. Nothing unusual. Looked like an ad for Coca Cola. On the inside it read:

__

I'm not sure how to even address this letter, since we have never met. I have recently gotten word from 

Cryogenics that I am your next of kin. Grandniece, to be exact.. I'm sorry we couldn't have found you sooner but it was only recently brought to our attention that you were there to be found. Grandma, your sister, died a few years ago. I hope this letter finds you well and I hope to see you at our Christmas dinner. If you feel uncomfortable, I understand. Though, I am very eager to meet you. There are directions on the back.

Your grandniece,

Jenny

Faye stared at the handwritten message as if she was waiting for it to explode. It did no such thing. But it might as well have, with the added complication it just hurled upon her life. A few months ago, a message like this would have sent her into a mad cap frenzy of joy. But now too much had happened. She had too many dead ends, and too many people telling her things that weren't true. Now she had no idea what to make of this letter. How could her family have gotten word from Cryogenics that she was alive, when they hadn't even known her last name? And surely they might have tried some other method of communication then a Christmas card and an open-ended invitation. The whole thing reeked of a trap. 

But it was also signed by her grandniece, Jenny. Jenny sounded like such a nice person. Jenny was such a nice name. You never hear of serial killers named Jenny. Of course, a serial killer could easily sign his name Jenny but the possibility was still there that it actually was Jenny.

And if it wasn't Jenny, she would really like to give whomever it was what for. So it seemed pretty certain she would be going. On Christmas Eve. She stared back into her grocery bag and took another huge swig of wine. Christmas Eve. Why did it have to be Christmas Eve? Depressing events were always compounded with the addition of a holiday. She had already been let down so often in the past three years. Five minutes ago, for the first time since she could remember, she was pretty certain that she wouldn't be let down. She knew what to expect from the gang on the Bebop. They never let her down. This was because she didn't expect anything of them but at least this was a mutual agreement. They just all decided to count on each other screwing up and be pleasantly surprised if they didn't. She didn't have an agreement with these people. They were all set up to fall short of expectations. Not to mention, they would be expecting stuff of her. Their Great Aunt Faye was currently wearing fishnets in 30 below weather and chugging wine out of the bottle in a public place. 

And then of course there was the more likely scenario, which was that it was actually her creditors. And over half of her creditors weren't of the most upstanding variety. She was currently holding in her hand what could be the key to her past or her undoing. Funny, but she suddenly didn't feel much like taking a gamble. She was absolutely certain that the Bebop were neither her family nor her creditors, and that made them the most appealing option of all. Besides, misery loves company, and she was pretty sure that was the true meaning of the holiday anyway. That and presents. And man would she be pissed if she got to this place and there were no presents. She was pretty sure there would be no presents on the Bebop either, but somehow that wouldn't bother her as much as if she went to this apartment expecting presents and found 12 guys with machine guns. So it was settled. She put the card back in her pocket so she could contact these people on a more emotionally accommodating day. It said right there on the card they'd understand.

And if it was her creditors, they'd be knocking on her door by New Years. It was about time to polish off that bottle.

Faye had a monstrous headache by the time she stumbled back into the ship, the groceries still amazingly secure. It was made worse by Jet chewing her ass out for drinking the wine. "Consider it payment," she grumbled.

"Payment!! You want to talk about payment?!!? Blah, blah blahbitty blah blah," is what Faye heard.

But even in her quasi-stupor she managed to feel a pang of guilt. Drunkards are not properly equipped to deal with guilt, so she attempted to pass it off to Spike. "Well, he doesn't pay rent either AND he didn't go shopping!"

"Hey, don't drag me into this," he snapped, lobbing the guilt back over the net. 

"I swear, both of you are completely useless," Jet grumbled. 

"Fine! Than I just won't do the shopping anymore!" Faye declared dramatically. 

"Fine by me. It's not worth it to have you two do me any favors," Jet sighed as he stormed off to his room and slammed the door. Spike just stared after him for a moment, perplexed at the notion that he somehow became involved in this whole argument by simply sitting there. He had to admit it. Faye had skills.

The shrew woman herself let out an exaggerated groan, rubbed her temples, and then flopped onto the couch. Shopping was so exhausting. She closed her eyes, intending to pass out there and then, when she suddenly felt a presence close to her face. Faye opened her eyes to see Spike hovering over her with a smug expression. "What?" she snapped.

"You were trying to get on the Forbidden List," he said.

Faye narrowed her eyes at him, which both expressed her irritation and helped to focus her vision slightly. Seeing one Spike at a time was plenty, thank you. "No," she said, rather unconvincingly.

"Yes. They won't send Jack shopping anymore if he trades the cow for magic beans. You can't pull that on me. I invented that."

Faye whined and put a pillow over her head to drown him out. "I hate you," Faye said half-heartedly from underneath her downy shield.

"With good reason," he admitted. "'Night, Faye."

"Night."


	4. Bells Will Be Ringing

Bells Will Be Ringing

__

Bells will be ringing the glad, glad news

Oh, what a Christmas to have the blues

The next few days were actually civil. It would be a lie to say the crew embraced the idea of celebrating the holidays full throttle. The tree was the extent of the decoration and buying each other gifts were out of the question. "Yeah, how about I don't knock you upside your head?" Jet suggested when Faye asked what her gift would be. "Merry Christmas."

Faye nodded as she ashed her cigarette right on the coffee table. When Jet gave her a look, she shrugged. "I was originally going to ash in your tree," she motioned to a Bonsai. "Merry Christmas."

And so was the banter as the advent calendar ticked down. No one was particularly interested in going hunting, which wasn't all that unusual anyway. The one Jet and Spike pulled in was enough to last them for a bit. Instead, they focused most of their attention on doing nothing. Not the sick, desperate nothing they usually did when they couldn't find work. But peaceful, relaxing nothing. The kind of nothing filled with late night viewings of old monster movies and sleeping until noon every day uninterrupted.

And then it happened on Christmas Eve, as if it was waiting for an opportune moment all along. Ed opened one sleepy eye to gaze at her Tomato, which was beeping at her incessantly. There was a message. And it was for Spike.

She gasped slightly as she shot to a sitting position. Ein whimpered at her and rested his head on her knee. He knew what it was. And he knew that it would make Ed unhappy.

Ed did not like it when Spike got messages. She didn't like it because when he got messages, a few things happened. One was that Spike and Jet would fight. She hated, hated, hated that more than anything. They would get loud and angry and say mean things. Everyone else fought on the ship, but not Spike and Jet. And when Spike and Jet fought, Faye would be very sad. And then sometimes she would leave. And then that seemed to make Jet madder. And everyone would just go around being mad and sad until Lunkhead Spike Person came back. And all because of some stupid message, like the one that was currently blinking up on her screen.

But she would give Spike the message. Even though she did not like what happened after, and even though Jet and Faye would prefer she didn't, she would give him the message. She always did. She gave it to him because he would want her to and he was her friend. And because she knew Spike would do the same for her, whether he liked what happened next or not. Spike was like that, and Ed liked that about Spike.

"Spike person," Ed sighed.

"Hmmm?"

"You have a message," she grumbled.

Spike raised an eyebrow. "From who?"

Ed made a snorting sound like a depressed horse. "From Jules-Jules-Julia."

The entire Bebop crew immediately dropped what they were doing and Ed crept silently away from the computer to cuddle Ein in the corner. It was already starting. 

Spike cleared his throat as he made his way tentatively over to the computer, intensely aware of the fact that he had an audience. And they wondered why he didn't tell them his life story. All they knew was her name and they were already much further into his business then he would prefer. He gulped as he spun the monitor around with his foot. He wasn't much for getting his hopes up nowadays, not since what happened the last time he did. 

The message was signed Julia. It was just an address. A bar in Tharsis he had never been to, but he knew where it was. He narrowed his eyes darkly at the screen, wondering if it was a trap. Not that it mattered. He had to go. He didn't say a word as he grabbed his trench coat from off the floor and headed for the door. This caused everyone to sigh deeply, since he had just grabbed his Angry Coat. No good ever came of Spike wearing the Angry Coat.

"Where are you going?" Jet growled.

"Out," Spike spat shortly.

"What in the hell is wrong with you?" Jet stood up. "If they constructed an 8 foot neon sign that says This Is A Trap it would be more subtle."

"Yeah, I know," he kept moving towards the exit.

"So _why are you going_?" Jet asked, sounding as if he was on the verge of decking his partner.

"Look, can we not do this today?" Spike paused in the hatch, his back still facing the crew. "The answers aren't any different from last time. You didn't like 'em then, you won't like 'em now. I'm going. That's all there is to it."

"Are you coming back?" Faye asked impulsively.

Spike did not respond. He just stood motionless in the doorway for a few seconds and then disappeared with a swoosh of his long coat. The remaining crew sat in silence as they heard the Swordtail scream angrily out of the hangar. "Well…" Jet grumbled bitterly. "I guess that's one less place for dinner."

"Make that two," Faye said as she rose from her spot on the couch.

"You're not going after him, are you?" Jet asked, rubbing his head feverishly.

"Hell no," she sighed. "I have my own stuff to take care off. He's not the only one with a broody tortured past, you know," she sniffed.

"Since when?" Jet snapped.

"Since a few days ago," Faye shrugged. "Not that it's any of your business but I got a top secret message of my own. I was going to take care of it later but since Spike already shot Christmas to shit I might as well go now," she sighed.

"All right. Fine. Whatever. You and Self-Destructo Boy can have a very jolly holiday. Just do me a favor and try not to drag me down with you."

Faye didn't say another word as she grabbed her own jacket and breezed out of the ship.


	5. Personal Jesus

****

Spike's Christmas

Personal Jesus

__

Take second best  
Put me to the test  
Things on your chest  
You need to confess  
I will deliver  
You know I'm a forgiver

  
Spike, despite the fact he was frequently accused of spending way too much time in his own head, would not remember his trip to the bar. He never remembered the intermediate journey to these little rendezvous of his. In the narrative of his memory, it always went Message, Seething Glares from Roommates, Arrival at Location. He figured he never remembered because there really wasn't much going on. Thinking usually got him into trouble, and to dwell in the hyperactive funhouse of his psyche at these times would probably cause his brain to melt. So he shut down, turning his head off until his body needed it again. And even then, he tried his hardest to relegate communication to monosyllabic commands such as kick, punch, dodge to the left, and usually, "ouch." But that never quite happened. For the unresponsive zombie he was known to be, he had an unfortunate habit of letting his emotions get the better of him, and always at the most inopportune moments. 

So one second Spike was turning his back on his partners and the next he was standing outside the bar with his hands in his pockets, debating whether to open the door. He figured there was either Julia or a shitload of heartache in that bar. No sense in waiting around to find out which. He didn't have to wait very long, though. He barely even touched the doorknob when at least half of his questions were answered.

"Merry Christmas…lover."

Spike's hand recoiled from the doorknob as if it burned him and he sighed a deep, throaty sigh that was a borderline growl. He wasn't surprised. Not anymore. But he still had to wonder exactly what he had gotten himself into this time. It could have been a trap. But maybe it wasn't and he beat her here. Maybe it wasn't and he killed her. Maybe it was and she was in on it. Somehow, not one of those scenarios lent him an ounce of comfort, which reminded him why he swore off thinking in the first place.

"I don't know why I ever hung out with you," the sinewy voice continued, a hint of playfulness permeating through the intended malice. "It must have been mind-numbingly dull to be around someone so predictable."

"You're one to talk," Spike snapped. He turned and locked eyes with the pale, sharp features of the man before him, all the more dulled by the lack of contrast against the snow. He was looking into the face of his greatest enemy, but with the way he was feeling in that moment, he might as well have been looking into a mirror. And so it always went with Vicious. "Next time it might be more direct to send me an engraved invitation."

Vicious leaned idly against the side of the building. He had come alone, and without even the slightest pretense of business. No one in the Syndicate knew where he was or who he was with. When he found out Julia was planning on meeting their old chum on the Holiest of Nights, he just had an admittedly immature desire to crash the party. "You came," he pointed out.

"Yes, well. Far be it for me to leave someone hanging," Spike said with a self-depreciating sort of air that secretly threw Vicious. "Was she here?" 

"Hard to say. She is a clever little minx. She had you fooled."

Spike impulsively raised his weapon at the comment, all the while kicking himself for being so easily ruffled. 

"So you have come to fight," Vicious smirked, drawing his sword. "I was worried for a second you wouldn't have it in you. Being twice jilted and all."

Spike rolled his eyes at his old partner's cartoonish malevolence. Vicious always had a gleefully tasteless way of twisting the knife that was humorous to Spike when they were on the same side. Now it was just annoying. "Have you shown up to gossip or to get down?" he hissed back, not at all in the mood for banter.  


"Get down," Vicious smiled, and Spike did.

He ducked as Vicious' blade sailed over his head, coming so close he could hear it whistle in his ear. Spike shot his leg out from a crouching position which was enough to throw his opponent off balance, if ever so briefly. They attacked each other fiercely, their blows trading off so quickly and their bodies so violently entwined it was difficult to tell where one man stopped and the other began. Spike pounded at his opponent's flesh savagely, a lifetime of raw deals and bad breaks being avenged with every strike. But he never once fired his weapon. 

In his head, it was because they were in a public place. God forbid some bullet ricocheted off something and went barreling into some family's Christmas dinner. It was what he would tell himself later when he replayed the night in his mind and what he would repeat to himself a few times before he went to sleep. After all, it was a perfectly reasonable and rational explanation.

But that wasn't what kept him from killing Vicious that night. He was not afraid to kill and he did not fear death. But there was one thing in this world that did scare Spike. There was one thing that shook him to his seemingly unflappable core. Spike Spiegel feared closure. 

Spike was a purgatory kind of guy. He loved limbo and the lack of definition that came with it. He wasn't comfortable with committing himself fully to black or white, but he appreciated the gray, that hazy place between the rock and the hard place where his dreams weren't dead and gone but simply unrealized. It was the place where he had a future. 

He just didn't know what it was. 

And he loved not knowing. He thrived on not knowing. Because the second he knew for sure, than the story of his past would be over. His best friend would have turned on him, his lover would have deserted him and he himself would have abandoned the very people he cared for. If he cut his ties than the story would be finished. And he did not care for the ending. 

So he clung to the What If's and the If Only's like a lifeline. He kept his past meandering about, waiting to strike whenever he got comfortable. He needed that uncertainty. He needed to keep it alive, gasping for breath on some sort of mental Euthanasia, because it was too much of himself to surrender. 

Vicious, he knew, felt the same. He knew it because Vicious showed up tonight and he knew it because Spike himself was still breathing. He knew it because they were friends, and what are allies, really, then two men with a common enemy? 

Vicious suddenly managed to clip Spike deeply in the shoulder, his blade passing easily through his flesh. Spike growled like a cornered animal as he brought his foot up to connect with Vicious' face, the blood and saliva splattering intensely on snow. They paused for a moment, glaring at each other. Both of them had reminded the other of the damage they could do and neither one had missed the message. They stood panting, daring the other to make the next move, when their stand off was interrupted by a cautionary squeal of a police siren. They shielded their eyes from the blinding light as a figure emerged from the abyss. "What the hell is going on here?" the man snarled. It was an ISSP agent.

"Personal matter," Vicious said coolly, both men's weapons already concealed by their own slight of hand. "Nothing of consequence." 

There was a roguish charm in his voice that Vicious always acquired when speaking to authority figures. For one brief moment, Spike was 15 again, stuffing candy bars in his pockets while Vicious distracted the drug store clerk, but then he felt a throb of pain shoot down his arm and the nostalgia passed.

The officer looked over the condition of his suspects and decided it was very personal indeed. "Well, this is my beat, Tinkerbell. And when you punks pull this shit on my beat, I take it very personal. Which one of you assholes started this?"  


Again, Spike had a perfectly logical and rational explanation for what he did next. To allow Vicious to be hauled into the station would potentially fold the entire operation. There was really nothing objectionable about that in theory. It was just that if Spike was to be Vicious' undoing, it couldn't be like this. This wouldn't be vengeance, or whatever he was supposed to be after. This would just be lame. It would join the ranks of Organized Crimes Biggest Bloopers, right next to Capone's failure to pay taxes. It wasn't simply about revenge. It was about honor! Valor! The way of the gun!

It was really about stalling for time. But Spike didn't admit that to himself, even as he "admitted" that he had started the fight. 

Vicious shot him a subtle sort of glance in an attempt to catch his eye. They were always able to have full and complex conversations with their eyes, and Vicious was curious to see exactly what it was Spike was thinking. But Spike would not look at him. "Is that true?" the cop asked Vicious harshly. 

Vicious' eyes shifted quickly back to the cop's tired face. "Yes, sir," he said smoothly. The whole situation was darkly amusing to him. After a lifetime of high crimes and misdemeanors, he was two seconds from being undone by a damned bar room scuffle. A crude understatement of the situation to be sure, but an accurate one to an outsider nonetheless. Surely, Spike had to see the irony in this. He wanted to ask him, but he knew now that their friendship, even the twisted perversion of friendship it had become, would have to be officially, undisputedly dissolved. The whole incident had proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

This was a mistake that Vicious could not afford to make again_. Spike_ was a mistake that he could not afford to make again, no matter how much he secretly enjoyed making it. He was staging a coup, not playing desperado. The time had come to put away childish things or else he could risk everything he worked so hard for.

He watched the cop push Spike's gangly frame into the squad car and glide off into the snowy streets. Next time would have to be the one, he decided as he turned and spit out a loose tooth. He had toyed with him long enough.

__

Reach out and touch faith


	6. Christmas for Cowboys

Christmas for Cowboys

__

Tall in the saddle we spend Christmas Day,  
Drivin' the cattle on the snow-covered plains.  
All of the good gifts given today;  
Ours is the sky and the wide open range.  


"Don't think I don't know what was going on there," the cop spoke to Spike in the rear view mirror. "You're lucky it happens to be Christmas Eve. I got better things to do then mettle around in Syndicate bullshit," he huffed. He didn't know why he felt the need to rationalize his lack of action out loud, and to a perp no less. But he had just knowingly let what was probably a high falutin member of one of the most powerful crime groups in history stroll merrily on his way. Maybe he just wanted the punk behind him to know he didn't fool anyone. He just happened to get lucky.

But the punk didn't seem much to care. He was just staring out the window, clutching his bleeding arm. Something about him struck the officer as different. He had arrested these sorts before and they were usually very tight lipped. But there was usually a defiant dignity to their silence. This kid just looked so…hurt. Like he just didn't have the energy to speak if he wanted to. And it wasn't just the arm.

"You uh…want to get that checked out?" he asked the kid impulsively. He was bleeding an awful lot and he had just gotten the upholstery steamed.

Only the kid's sleepy eyes shifted in the rear view mirror. "I'm fine," he sighed.

"You sure?" the cop was suddenly feeling paternal towards him and he didn't have the foggiest clue as to why. Maybe because something about the way he carried himself, and the way he just obviously took the fall for someone he must not have cared for much, reminded the old man of himself in younger days.

"No," Spike croaked. "But I can't afford it."

The cop just nodded as his car glided silently in the snowy streets. There was something about snow that seemed to make things quieter somehow, and kind of eerie. Like the world was being played in slow motion. They pulled into the station and he began the laborious task of booking his youthful ward. "Hey. Man or Afro-man," the cop snapped from over his computer. "You exist? I don't got a thing on you."

"I'm sitting here, aren't I?" Spike sighed.

"Not on paper, you ain't."

"No, I wouldn't be on paper," he said flatly, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world.

"No…I suppose you wouldn't," the cop grumbled. He made a little whistling sound as his fingers danced routinely over the keys. The constant tapping reminded Spike of Ed, which made him smile a bit. "So what's your real name, kid?"

"Spike."

"That's it? It's not short for something?

"What, you mean like…Spiketto?"

The cop thumped the keyboard in frustration. "I dunno, kid. Is Spike your real name or what?"

"It's the name that was given to me," he said in an even tone. "Sorry I can't be more cooperative here but I haven't been living the kind of lifestyle that would make this run smoothly."

The remark was inherently sarcastic but it was spoken in a totally sincere way. He seemed genuinely sorry to be a bother. "My name's Statler," the cop introduced himself. It only seemed fair that Spike at least know his name. Statler liked to think of himself as a fair guy, at least when he was able. He was not oblivious to the fact that fairness and law enforcement were often a conflict of interest. "So what was that all about, anyway?" he asked as he was waiting for some paperwork to clear. 

Statler had been continually glancing at his watch. Spike was obviously making him run late for something. "I thought you knew," he said.

"I have an idea," Statler shrugged, tapping his knuckles impatiently on the table. "And believe me. I know appearances don't count for shit in this town. But you just don't look like your typical Syndicate scum."

"Oh yeah?" Spike smirked slightly. "And what kind of scum do I look like?"

"I dunno. The kind that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the kind who has a long, sad history of doing so."

"That's a pretty fair assumption to make," Spike agreed, laying down on the bench with a little wince. He had his hands, still cuffed, lifted over his head and dangling off the end of the bench, seemingly oblivious to the dark spot steadily spreading across the shoulder of his suit.

Statler's phone rang and Spike watched as several different expressions jumped around his face. He seemed to finally settle on mild amusement as he hung up the phone. "Hot damn, kid. It really is your lucky day," he said as he began feverishly typing on the computer. "You know who that was?"

"Jesus?" Spike asked, really only half kidding.

Statler smirked. "Might as well be, as far as your concerned. That was the Black Dog himself."

Spike groaned and put his hands over his face. He wondered briefly how Jet found out about his predicament and then decided it didn't matter. "Is he here?"

"No, he's actually in Ganymede. Seemed royally pissed at you too. But he still managed to drop all charges."

"Is that legal?"

"No. But the old man has managed to rack up quite a few favors. And those are as good as legal. He personally assured me you are only a threat to your own dumb ass. That was a quote."

"I figured. And you believe him?"

"Sure."

"Can I ask why?"

"Cause Jet Black says so, and he don't vouch for just anybody."

Spike just blinked at the ceiling for a bit. To be perfectly honest, the Syndicate seemed to run more fairly than the ISSP. If you screwed up you were lynched, no matter who vouched for you. Cops seemed naturally more inclined to play favorites. "Just as every cop is a criminal," Spike sighed, though he had no idea why he had just chosen to say that out loud.

"And all the sinners saints," Statler finished. Spike looked at him with a surprised expression. Statler just shrugged as he unlocked Spike's cuffs. "Hey," he said. "Even the devil deserves a little sympathy on Christmas."

Spike smiled, begrudgingly let the receptionist apply some gauze to his shoulder, and ambled lazily out of the precinct. Common sense told him to return to the Bebop but everything else told him to go back to the address. He wasn't entirely convinced the message was a fake and there was also a tiny, nagging voice inside him that wondered if maybe Julia had led him to Vicious on purpose. It was a faint voice, and it sounded like Jet. He tried his best to ignore it. You know. Like he ignored Jet. But it was still there, and it needed to be appeased. He had to find out what was waiting for him at that bar.

Spike paused with his hand on the doorknob again, waiting for someone to jump out at him, shoot at him, inform him he had just won the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes…something. But nothing happened. So he opened the door. 

"Spike!" Julia cried and threw her arms around him passionately. "Let's move to the country and have a dozen babies!"

Ok, that didn't happen. Nothing happened. There was hardly anyone in the bar, just a few depressed patrons and an equally depressed looking barkeep. It would have been nice if that happened, Spike thought. Though Julia would not want to move to the country or have a dozen babies. She'd want a bungalow on an island somewhere and drinks with cute names and little umbrellas. But not even that was going to happen. The only thing he could be sure was going to happen was he was going to get very, very, very drunk.

He hopped dejectedly on the barstool and ordered a couple Three Wise Men, just to be festive. He looked down and noticed the coaster in front of him did not match the place he was sitting in. It was from Sullivan's. Holy crap. Sullivan's. 

He went to Sullivan's about every other day back when he was a kid. With the boys. But that was a good 15 miles away. He wondered what it was doing here. He sighed a bit as another memory sprung to mind. He fought it admirably, but it still reared its head. It was a nice memory but a sad time to think of it. It actually happened a few years ago on Christmas Eve. The one he spent with…well…he knew who he spent it with.


	7. Something Good

Something Good

__

Perhaps I had a wicked childhood

Perhaps I had a miserable youth

But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past

There must have been a moment of truth

Christmas Eve, 2066

The thing about half-dead bodies is that there is really no logical way to hold them while you are simultaneously trying not to become a half-dead body yourself. Julia barely knew how they even got into the safe house alive but they did. Well, 2/3 of them did. The last one was up in the air.

She and Spike dumped their fallen comrade on the floor of the house before tentatively peeking out the front window. So far, they had lost their enemies. That didn't really count for much. The only reason why the Tigers weren't already busting down their door is they were mistakenly under the impression that there would be a team of Dragons waiting for them at the house. There wasn't. It was just Julia, Spike and Tiny. Julia hated it when particularly large dogs or hit men or whatever, were named Tiny, because it just wasn't very funny and it somehow added to the irritation of lugging the man's 280-pound frame into house. "What would you nickname him, then?" Spike asked as he attempted to curb their partner's bleeding.

"Big Fat Mother Fucker?" Julia suggested as she broke some thread off in her teeth. Spike smirked as she began to hastily stitch up the wound. She hated stitches almost more than being shot. Both receiving and giving them.

"I'll bring it up at the next meeting," Spike replied and the two of them shared a sideways sort of smile. They had gotten into the habit of talking about bullshit on the job. Not in front of Vicious, as he wouldn't stand for such post-modern nonsense. But secretly, the two of them enjoyed their missions together. It was the only time they felt they could behave somewhat like normal human beings, despite the fact that their daily agenda was a far cry from normal. It was really the only time they let their guard down just enough to be themselves. 

"Man," Spike grumbled, slumping against the wall in exhaustion when the bleeding was finally subdued. "What a night. Do you think Vicious and the boys did any better?"

"I hope so," Julia sighed. If they hadn't, there would be much ass reaming from Mao for sure.

"I think I've got some brains on my shirt," Spike suddenly noticed, obviously grossed out. "That just isn't right," he sighed as he tried to flick some sort of goo off his person without betraying his cool exterior.

"Merry Christmas," Julia suddenly blurted out, pulling a small package out of her jacket. Spike just looked at her like she had nine heads. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. "I meant to segue into that gracefully but the mention of gray matter officially killed all hope of that."

"What is it?"

"It's a present," she said in a "duh" tone of voice. "It's what people traditionally do on Christmas." She was aware of the fact that said tradition didn't usually include hastily sewing up bleeding fat men with fishing wire in an abandoned shack, but you take what you can get.

"You didn't have to do that," Spike said almost cautiously, still staring at the package as if it would bite. It had been awhile since he had seen a present. And it was probably the first time in human history one was given in these exact circumstances. 

"Of course I didn't _have_ to," she said. "But you're my friend. And a pretty good one. I don't have too many of those," she said a little sadly, and then added with a sly sort of grin, "So I have to secure your loyalty with material things."

Spike chuckled lightly as he finally proceeded to open his present. Inside the box was a tiny picture frame. And mounted neatly in the center of it was a fortune from a Chinese fortune cookie. Spike scrunched his face up in curiosity before his eyes lit up with the realization of what he had. "Shit, is this from Huang's?" he asked. Julia nodded.

Spike shook his head in amazement. He used to squat in an empty apartment above Huang's Take Out. Old Huang knew about it but didn't have the heart to say anything. He even "threw out" some neatly wrapped egg rolls from time to time. They were the best egg rolls in the history of the universe. He had mentioned this discovery briefly to Julia and Vicious when they passed it one night coming back from the bars. He never mentioned it again. It floored him to think she remembered. "Thanks, Jules," he said, barely containing his amusement. It was such an odd, thoughtful gift, which was appropriate because he always thought of Julia as a little odd and a little thoughtful. 

"I wasn't sure about the saying," she said, leaning over him to read it as if she had never seen her own gift before. "It was kind of cheesy but then I also thought it was very…well…you." 

The fortune said, _You will be hungry soon. Order take out now_. Huang's number was printed neatly at the bottom. Spike shrugged. "We know it'll come true," he reasoned, and then he suddenly began rooting around in his jacket. "I got you something too," he said.

Julia didn't believe him for a second and Spike knew that, but it didn't stop him from trying. "I got you…" 

A button, a gum wrapper, a paper clip…what the hell was…oh yeah. A half eaten mint. A lighter? That was always a good gift but he would only borrow it from her anyway. There had to be something in his pocket of some use. She was getting suspicious. "I got you," he repeated as his fingers wrapped around a random object. "This coaster!" he announced as if he knew this all along. Hey, a coaster was functional.

Julia gasped. "Damn, I _hate_ water rings!" she exclaimed with playful enthusiasm. "How did you know?" 

"See, the beauty of this coaster," Spike explained as he handed it to her, continuing to play it off like this was all part of some grand plan. "Is that it not only protects your coffee table, but at some point in time, it might accrue sentimental value. Like, you could be 80 years old with nine thousand cats and you'll come across this coaster and say, 'Hey. I remember this place. We had such good times at, uh,…where was that from again?"

"Sullivan's."

"Sullivan's," Spike continued as if he hadn't missed a beat. "And you will think, Wow. That Spike was a real thoughtful guy."

Julia smiled in such a way that indicated she was both touched and amused by his effort and then sighed as she snapped open the suddenly ringing comm. She hated the comm more than she hated water rings, stitches and fat guys named Tiny combined. "What?" 

It was Vicious. They did seem to have a slightly better night but he had news that if Spike and Julia didn't get out of there soon, their night was going to get a lot worse. She and Spike looked at each other with similar expressions of dread as they geared themselves up to lug Tiny back out to the car. And so Christmas was over not too long after it began.

It was probably the night Spike officially fell in love with Julia, if one wanted to pinpoint such things. He was infatuated with her from the very first time he saw her. But it was a giddy, stupid little crush that had more to do with her hair and her eyes. But that night he realized it wasn't really physical at all. It wasn't that she was a hot chick. It was that delirious momentary high he got when he could make her smile, and the fact that she could return the favor. It was the fact that she remembered stupid, useless things, simply because they were important to him. It was the fact that she would give him a fortune cookie tag in a picture frame. Who does that? 

All of those things had nothing to do with her hair and her eyes, which he still enjoyed. But that wasn't what was making it increasingly more enjoyable to hang out with her, to go on jobs with her, to just be near her. It was just her. It was Julia. And he was positive after that night that life just wouldn't be as fun without her around. It would be months before he'd ever act on those feelings, and even longer before he expressed them out loud, but that was probably the night they first came into being. 

And he always thought, at least a little, that maybe something was there for her too that night. But now, sitting in a dingy bar by himself in Tharsis City, he wasn't sure of anything anymore. Maybe it was all a lie. Maybe in the end, she was the businesswoman Vicious had always hoped she'd be. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe he was a complete and total jackass. He rotated the piece of cardboard in his fingers absently until something caught his eyes. He shifted his gaze down towards the coaster and realized something was written on the back:

__

Wow. That Spike was a real thoughtful guy.

He stared at that. Just stared at the words scrawled on the back until the edges glowed, burning into the back of his eyes like embers. He stared…and then he paid his tab and left the bar.


	8. Throw My Toys Around

****

Ed's Christmas

Throw My Toys Around

__

I've got no time for fairy stories

I'm not a little child

Everything makes me furious 

Everything makes me wild

Nobody's looking now 

I'll throw my toys around

Jet decided to go for a walk soon after dinner. Ed anticipated this, and pretended to be asleep until then. You see, Jet was a walker. 

Spike was a flyer. 

Faye was a yeller and a screamer and a thrower of fragile things. 

Ed never really bothered to commit to one verb or another. She liked all verbs, and when she was angry she enjoyed having her pick of the whole lot of them. Her roommates were far more predictable. For example, Ed was quite certain from the word go that Christmas was going to end in walking and flying and throwing of fragile things. But that didn't mean she had to like it. 

She wanted to fix things but she just wasn't really sure how. As sprightly as she was, she was surprisingly inept at cheering people up. But the idea of everyone returning from their pouting sessions all grumpy and snappy and mean was making her stomach woozy. It was _annoying_, to use one of Spike's words. Ed was determined to somehow make this night less annoying. And so she set off with the vague objective of saving Christmas.

But first she had to get a handle on this snow thing. Ed was not a snow type person. She was a sand person. A sun person. A squiggly lines in the air person. This snow was something else. On one hand, it was soft and wet and tasted good if you ate it in the right place. On the other hand, it was cold and managed to sneak into uncomfortable places. And on yet another hand, there was the business of all these clothes.

At first she thought that she could just brave the elements in her standard uniform of bike shorts, bare feet, and a parachute of a tank top. She discovered about two minutes into her journey that was simply not going to happen. Her feet were so callused she could have a picnic on a bed of hot coals, but they were still no match for 8 inches of snow and ice. And she really hated her ears being cold. It was a strange feeling. But not the good strange feeling, like the kind she got when she stuck her fork in the toaster. Just icky strange. So she padded back into the Bebop and went rummaging around everyone's stuff. Faye had a spare sweatshirt and Jet left some gloves and Spike didn't take his scarf. She found a hat but she wasn't sure who it belonged to. She found a pair of Jet's boots lying around that were way too big but she corrected that with duct tape. She remembered Spike's big pink jacket must have been lying around somewhere and she set off searching the abyss of his room to find it. She finally managed to locate it, bunched up in a wad and shoved under his bed. She found all sorts of things under his bed. And on top of it. And actually in the bed, as well. She figured that was why Spike never slept in his bed. He apparently decided it was better used for storage.

After smuggling a neat little bounty from her roommate's secret stash, including a broken set of chattering teeth, an air freshener shaped like a tree, and several packets of duck sauce, she threw on her new outfit and waddled precariously out into the night.

Ein was not nearly as cautious. He ran in circles around his partner in crime, yapping playfully at the falling flakes and pausing ever so often to swan dive into the snow banks. He rolled in it, ate it, peed all over it and occasionally made little doggy snow angels. He had seemingly reached some stage of canine bliss not previously known to humans. Ed followed suit and soon found that despite her nine pounds of clothing, she too enjoyed the snow. "Now if Ed were Christmas," she said as she stared up at the sky mid-angel. "Where would Ed be?"

Ein gleefully plopped in the snow next to her. "Do you know what Ed thinks?" she asked him, rolling over so she was on her stomach. Ein barked inquisitively. "Ed thinks if Ed were Christmas," she said ponderously. "Then Ed would be at the mall." She furrowed her brow as she thought this through. "Maybe if Ed went to the mall and got a Christmas all proper like, Bebop-Bebop would shut up." 

Ein seemed to consider this for a moment, and then sort of shrugged and began to lick himself. "Ein isn't very full of ideas today, are you, Space Doggie?" Ed asked him with affectionate annoyance. Ein responded by licking her face with the same tongue that he had just used to swab other areas. Ed scrunched her face up, licked him back and then sprung to her feet. "To the mall!" she declared.

Ed and Ein both pressed their faces up against the glass doors of the shopping center. There was something appealing about public places at night. Something forbidden about it. Ed was reminded of her fifth birthday, back when she still lived with Father Person. He had taken her to Good Happy Fun Time Pizza Carnival, with the little robots that sang songs while you ate. Ed didn't care much for the singing robots, but she liked sneaking behind the curtain when they were turned off. It was creepy, seeing the giant animatronic hamsters and things staring blankly into space. It was then she realized that something else was making those things sing, something different from what made her sing. Even at five years old, looking at those robots made her want to know what it was. 

Looking now at the mannequins all posed grimly in the dark, she had a bit of the same feeling. She pulled her laptop out of the huge bag she was lugging and began tapping into the security system. Dum-de-dum-dum-dum. The automatic doors slid open like entrance to some commercialized tomb. The mall was theirs.

Ed strolled slowly around the center court. Now that she was here, she wasn't quite sure what to do. She never had a real Christmas. Her Dad never believed in "that stuff," whatever "that stuff" was. And later on, Ed decided she didn't really like that stuff either, because you had to sit still and eat bad tasting crackers with sour grape juice. The Nice Penguin Lady always made them go do "that stuff" on Christmas, and so Ed made it a point to disappear. But she had seen a lot of Christmas on the TV. What was one thing everyone always has on Christmas? "Stockings!" she remembered.

But somehow they didn't look like they did on TV. And why did they come in plastic eggs? Wasn't that Easter? "What does Ein think?" Ed asked him as she pulled one down over her head, and then another. "Nude or Navy Blue?"

Ein whimpered as he struggled to get the nylon unstuck from his teeth. He liked chewing Jet's socks way better. "Ed likes Nude too," Ed agreed. "It make's Ed's face look all funny."

So stockings…check. Now what?

Figgy pudding? Ew. That sounded gross.

Brown paper packages tied up with strings? Now that was something. Presents. 

"Presents!" Ed leapt into the air. "Ed will get presents for Bebop-Bebop!"

Ed nabbed a duffel bag from the sporting goods section big enough to fit at least two bodies in and proceeded to stuff it with things that sparked her interest. A spatula, a golf umbrella, a Martini shaker and she found this bag that she thought Faye might like and these hats she knew Jet and Spike wouldn't like but she would like to see them in. She was dubiously inspecting a foosball table and debating how easily it could be dismantled when she heard a loud crash from somewhere behind her.

"OW! Shit!"

Ed slunk down to the floor and dragged herself stealthy across the linoleum. She then sprung to her feet and struck a dramatic spy-type pose against a row of washing machines before she peeked around the corner and saw the source of the commotion.

It appeared that Santa Claus and somehow gotten himself entangled in a web of Christmas display lights, and was spewing forth a stream of profanity unlike Ed had ever heard, and living with her roommates, that was saying something. She just stood there, watching him struggle for awhile, before she ventured, "Hello?"

Santa leapt three feet in the air before the lights got the better of him, and he came crashing back to Earth with a humbling thud. He was quick to get back on his feet and even quicker to brandish a gun in Ed's direction. His eyes softened considerably when he saw the owner of the voice, however. It looked like a kid. At least he thought it was a kid. But it was wearing some crazy outfit that puffed it up to some strange, inhuman dimension. It looked almost otherworldly in a way. Like something out of a child's storybook. "What are you, an elf or something?" he asked.

"If Grumpy Person is Santa," Ed said skeptically, "Then Ed is an elf."

"Fair enough," Santa shrugged and as he lowered his weapon. "So what are you…I mean…are you hitting this place up?"

"Wha?"

"You robbin' the place?"

"Oh! Ed is just getting some things for Bebop Bebop!"

Santa briefly considered asking for clarification on the Bebop thing and then decided against it. He was now pretty sure it was kid under all those clothes, at least. "I see. You know that you are stealing, though, right? You can get in a lot of trouble," he spoke slowly and in a vaguely sing-songy type of tone, like he was Mr. Rogers explaining the 8th Commandment to a bunch of kindergartners. "Are you going to pay for that stuff?" he asked.

"No," Ed said flatly. "Ed does not believe in capitalism."

Santa snorted at the fact that this parka with two eyeballs sticking out of it just said the word "capitalism" and then tried to quickly reassess this thing's age. It wasn't an elf…it wasn't a sweet little orphan…it was breaking into a shopping mall…"Are you an anarchist or something?" he asked, taking a stab in the dark 

"No, Ed thinks everyone should believe in order but Ed. Makes things easier for Ed," she admitted plainly. 

Santa stared blankly for a moment and then nodded his head in approval. Whatever this thing was, he was pretty sure he liked it. "I'm not capitalism's biggest fan either," he admitted. 

"Is that why Santa is robbing the mall?"

Santa sighed deeply before he snarled. "Let's say the mall owes me. Everyone owes me. I'm here to collect." He then proceeded to stuff a set of gardening tools into his sack with dramatic flourish. The mall apparently owed him some perennials.

Ed made a non-committal clucking sound as she watched this, not really sure how she was expected to react. She didn't feel compelled to either turn in or be an accessory to this person but she also felt odd about walking away at this point. Whatever was going on, she knew she was now somehow involved. 

She sort of learned that from her roommates. They were always involved, and if she had to pick up one of their habits, she thought that was the least offensive. "What does the mall owe Santa?" she asked, hopping on top of a charcoal grill with startling agility, especially for someone weighed down with ten pounds of pink parka.

Santa raised an eyebrow at the creature perched on the grill before him like a gargoyle, not entirely convinced he wasn't imagining the whole thing. "They owe me my life," he replied hesitantly, not wanting to get into it. But the more he thought about his prospects this evening, the more apparent his impending doom seemed to be. He was not a career criminal. He was dabbling. And seeing as a small child was having an easier time of breaking and entering than he was, he figured he was just biding his time until the cops showed up. Might as well get out his sob story, even if it was to a freakishly acrobatic elf. "I had a repair shop. It was my Dad's. I took it over when he died…" he trailed off for a moment and then asked, "Is there any place I can get a beer in this mall?"

"Beer, beer, beer," Ed sang merrily. "Santa can get giggly drink at Super Quick Mart," Ed suggested. She knew that because her roommates have done so when funds were low and the need to be buzzed was high. "It comes in a box. Faye-Faye says it's like Hi-C for grownups."

Again, Santa was intrigued by these names the elf was dropping as if it was common knowledge, but decided against asking about it. "Ok, then," he sighed. "Let's move this little party to the Super Quick Mart."


	9. Santa Got a Raw Deal

Santa Got a Raw Deal

__

This seems strange to me

The movies had that movie thing,  
but nonsense has a welcome ring  
and heroes don't come easy.  
  
Now, nonsense isn't new to me.  
I know my head, I know my feet,  
but mischief knocked me in the knees.  
And it said, Just let go. 

Santa was a bit surprised to discover that the party also included a Welsh Corgi. He somehow missed that in the department store. Right now, the dog was batting an empty pantyhose egg around the store with visible amusement. After drinking about half a box of White Zinfandel, labeled only as "pink" on the package, he finished his story. He was the very last person on a street of small, independent businesses to be bought out by the mall developers. His dad had just died, and Santa would be damned if he were going to give up his father's life work so easily. Plus, it would put him right out of a job. He had kids to consider, and the money they were offering wasn't enough to support a family for any length of time. So the Mall People cut him a deal. If he bought out, they would give Santa a job in the new mall. No questions asked. Santa accepted. And…

"What job did Mall Persons give you?" Ed cocked her head in interest.

Santa downed the last of his pink and replied, "This." In one quick wave of his hand, he summed himself up. A Department Store Santa. A lousy three week season and even lousier pay, with an option to renew in the spring, if he wanted to be the Easter Bunny. "I got nothin' now. My wife left me. I lost my shop. For this. I traded my whole life for a Santa costume."

Even Edward, who was notoriously green in the negotiating department, could see that Santa got a raw deal. She would not want to trade the Bebop for a Santa costume. She couldn't even eat it! Ed bounced into a handstand, as she usually did when she was thinking hard. Santa seemed weirded out by the sudden movement, but then pounded another cup of pink wine and shrugged it off. 

Ed was now officially involved. What happened to Santa was wrong. She knew that. And she knew that Santa did not really want to steal gardening equipment. No one really wants to steal gardening equipment. Except maybe the hoe. Ed kinda liked the hoe. It was shaped funny and the name was fun to say. Hoe, hoe, hoe!

Back to Santa. Santa did not really want to steal. Santa just wanted to make people angry. Santa was making a statement! She knew a little bit about statements. A lot of the people her roommates caught talked about statements. She also knew that a lot of the time, these people were full of crap. That was a Jet word. Crap. 

But sometimes, they weren't full of crap. She could always tell when they weren't full of crap because everyone would look at each other funny. And then the person would "get away." No one told fish stories quite like the Bebop, the only ship in history to throw back the big ones.

Santa was not full of crap but he was going to get into a lot of trouble. Santa wasn't really good at robbing people and Ed was certain he would be caught. Ed was very good at robbing people. Ed was good at anything she wanted to be good at. But robbing the mall wasn't going to make a statement. Lucky for Santa, Ed knew exactly what would.

"Let's GO!" she declared suddenly, startling Santa so badly he splooshed pink wine all over his suit. 

"What? Where? What are you talking…"

Ed suddenly pounced on Santa Person, wrapping one arm around his neck for support and her other hand around his mouth. "Shhh…" she said. "No questions. Just follow the bouncing Ed."

Santa looked directly into the amber eyes peaking out from behind her scarf and wondered if this thing hanging off of him was even human at all. It looked so young but something about it seemed older than even he. Maybe there really was such thing as elves. Ed whistled for Ein, who came barreling out from somewhere in the food aisle. "Reindeer," Ed grinned, and then back flipped off Santa person, using his chest as a springboard. Santa was only mildly surprised to realize the elf was literally bouncing.

"Yeah…" Santa said cautiously. "Reindeer."


	10. Up on the Rooftop

Up on the Rooftop

__

Click, click, click

Down through the chimney with good St. Nick

Ed, Santa and Rudolf the Red Nosed Ein stared at the split level before them, allowing themselves to be slightly hypnotized by the flashing Christmas lights. Then Ed made a sort of humming sound that made Santa jump a bit, skitted around the perimeter of the house, and then shimmied up half the drainpipe. She paused, narrowing her eyes at the roof, and then slid back down to fetch her dog, which she was now carrying in a knapsack. 

After making her way back up the pipe, a little more ponderously this time with the addition of a corgi, Ed perched herself on the lip of the chimney. She yanked out a few extension chords she grabbed in the mall, just cause she could never have too many extension cords, and began to tie them together. After making a satisfactorily long rope, she tied one end to the bag. "Ready, Ein?" she asked the dog. 

Ein's eyes got huge in an obvious indication that he was not ready, and never would be. He whimpered and tried to escape but Ed grabbed him and shoved him back into the bag. Ein silently pleaded with her one more time before Ed began lowering the bag into the chimney. "Don't be such a baby, Ein," Ed chided. "Ed's got you." She emerged with ring of soot around her eyes and nose but didn't seem to notice. Soon she felt the soft little thump that indicated Ein touched down. Delighted, Ed yanked the bag back up with a squeal and leapt from the roof in a single bound. Or at least three bounds. "What the hell just happened here?" Santa asked, wishing he still had some more pink.

"Wait," Ed grinned. She then began rocking impatiently on her feet, singing under her breath. "Yule log, egg nog, fuzzy dog," she hummed. 

"What are we waiting for?" Santa asked, but his question was answered when he saw the small form of the dog leap onto the windowsill. He looked pissed, the dog did. He never really saw a pissed off looking dog before. They usually all had the same blank expression. But this was definitely one miffed canine.

Then to his amazement, the dog quite easily nudged the latch open on the window. Santa stared at the animal, mouth gaping open, and then watched as the elf thing quite casually dragged her duffel bag full of booty over to the window, opened it, and climbed inside. He continued to stand there, watching, until her little head popped out and she hissed, "Come on!"

Not knowing what else to do, Santa glanced nervously around and followed the bouncing Ed. He looked around the living room and spotted her unloading the various souvenirs from the mall and placing them under the family's Christmas tree. "Uh…Little Elf Thing," he hazarded. "What are you doing?"

"Being Santa!" she grinned this huge, almost frightening grin before cramming a spatula into one of the children's stockings. Then a completely different expression came across her face. Her eyes lit up, not with the blank, third person lunacy she seemed to be lit up with earlier, but a shrewd, mischievous sort of light. The kind of light one acquired when one was about to use her powers for evil. "People only like Santa because everyone likes Free Stuff," she said slyly, and when her new partner did not seem anymore enlightened, she added, "And The Mall only likes Christmas because there's no such thing as Santa."

Santa's eyes widened. This elf was not only a genius, but she was an evil genius. If the mall was so hard up for a Santa Claus, than that was exactly what they were going to get. And even if they did get caught, so what? He had seen Miracle on 34th Street enough times to know it is not in a department store's best interest to persecute Santa Claus. It is a public relations nightmare. Christmas is suddenly looking up, he thought as he jammed a martini shaker into Billy's Christmas stocking with gusto.

The unlikely trio lumbered from house to house, dragging their sacks behind them. Ed was amazingly stealthy, even taking off her gigantic boots on occasion where they would make too much noise. And she was some sort of technological whiz. She carried this ancient laptop in her knapsack when she wasn't using it to lower surly canines down into chimneys, but as far as Santa was concerned, she wielded some mystical key. She tore through lines of code like a lawn mower moving through an open field. No puny alarm system stood a chance against her. Nothing held her back. No locks, no doors, no bars or chains…nothing. 

Santa found himself envying her. 

They paraded around suburbia as if they owned it, and when they ran out of supplies, they simply went back and restocked. They were quick and they were silent. They were in and out far more efficiently than a fat man crashing down a chimney could ever be. They wouldn't have run into any trouble at all if it hadn't been for the kids. 

The first time they looked up and saw a couple of children staring at them in wide-eyed wonder, Santa almost panicked. He pictured some oaf of a father coming after them with a sawed off shotgun and he froze for a moment, not entirely sure how to handle the situation. But then he realized that they weren't afraid of him. Not yet. They were children, and did not yet realize that breaking and entering was usually a malicious activity. People broke into their world all the time. The Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and now Santa. "Hey," he said softly. The children waved a bit timidly from their steps. "Uh…have you been good this year?"

They nodded. Well, of course they nodded. They weren't stupid. "Er, what would you like for Christmas? We've got um…" he rummaged through his sack. "A car seat cover and this lovely gift box from Channel #5!" he tried to sound enthusiastic. 

The kids looked at each other with skeptical expressions before the girl shrugged and said, "The car seat cover."

Santa handed it to her and attempted to shake his not very large belly like a bowl full of jelly. "How come you're not fat?" she asked him.

"Atkins diet," he said gravely. "The reindeer'll eat the cookies though." He felt he should literally throw their Rudolf a bone, since this Christmas Eve was proving to be one endless irritation for the little guy. Ein seemed to nod eagerly in agreement. 

"That's a dog," the boy pointed out.

"No, we're just breeding them smaller this year," he said quickly as he glanced pleadingly at his partner to help him out. Ed, who had been watching this whole exchange with great amusement, finally saved the day. She was, not surprisingly, a remarkable performer. She walked on her hands, she balanced baseball bats on her nose, she balanced the dog on top of the baseball bat on top of her nose, and she did things with yo-yo's that seemed to defy the laws of physics. Then she bowed and the two of them backed out of the house and moved on to the next one. 

From then on, anyone they did run into was pretty much powerless to resist Ed's charms. They won over every child they met, and even if Jimmy didn't know what to do with a Rotato vegetable peeler or a jar of leg wax, his celebrity encounter more than made up for it. The problem of course, was that children were now running into their parents room wielding stories of two visiting strangers and gifts not purchased by their own commissioned "Santa."

The calls into the police station were becoming over whelming. Everyone had initially shrugged it off as some practical joke. Nothing was stolen and no one was ever harmed. But the calls were too steady and the mothers too hysterical for the cops to ignore it for much longer. Eventually, the call came to be on the look out for the Santito Banditos. Or at least, that was what Punch christened them when the news first broke on Big Shot.


	11. Please Please Please Let Me Get What I W...

****

Faye's Christmas

Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want

__

The life that I've had

Can make a good man bad

So for once in my life

Let me get what I want

Lord knows it would be the first time

Please please please let me get what I want this time

Faye was so frickin' pissed off she could kill someone. Which was good. Cause she was most likely going to have to do just that. Oh, gee. Come over for some Christmas ham and we'll catch up on the last few decades. "Yeah right!!!" she shouted bitterly and then tossed the greeting card on the ground. She noticed with horror that the return address was smearing, so she quickly belly flopped in the snow to retrieve it. She then sat up right, staring at the runny ink with a perplexed expression. Why did she just do that? Why was she so hung up on this thing? Why was she trudging through god-awful weather for the slim chance that there would be ham, as opposed to pissed off creditors? What was _wrong_ with her?

She knew if she had the answers to those questions, she wouldn't be so angry with Spike. And maybe that was the real reason she hated him so much in these moments. He was a vivid reminder of her own pathetic nature. Chasing after the Ghosts of Christmas Past with every intention of coming up empty. Starting journeys they knew they were going to fail. Just to what? Say they gave it the old college try? Faye pounded her fists into the frozen ground, taking some sort of backwards comfort from the pain it brought. The pain was real. That Christmas card wasn't. But off she went because of the two stupid words that had been plaguing her since she first opened her eyes to her second existence. 

What. If.

What if? One simple question that was slowly but surely ruining her life. Or at least, what little shot she had at making one for herself. She had people back on that ship that at least tolerated her. And cooked her dinner. If she were smart she would turn back. She'd turn right around, storm back on to that ship, make some smart remark to Jet and eat herself some string bean casserole. She'd rip this stupid card up right this second. And she would have, too. If she hadn't caught a glimpse of the message inside, written in cute, childlike handwriting.

__

…hope to see you…

And then she heard it. The little, nagging voice that could never leave well enough alone. What if. What if there was a little girl named Jenny in that apartment, who hoped to see her great aunt Faye. What if, you big dummy. What if this was really real and you gave it up to go eat Shake and Bake with a cantankerous ex-cop and his Dr. Demento junior sidekick? What if.

So she had to go. She would go carrying a gun, but she would go. And soon after she finally decided that the apartment would be her final destination, she was there, staring at a plastic wreath hanging lopsided on the front of a red door, debating whether or not to grab the handle. She had one last fit of doubt where she almost turned and fled, but then she heard The Christmas Song. The good one. By Nat King Cole. It was coming from inside that apartment. Before she even knew what hit her, she grabbed the knocker. And so the deed was done. All she had left to do was take in a sharp, nervous breath as she waited for the doorknob to turn.

"Come in," someone said from inside.

Come in. Most people go through the formality of opening the door on a holiday. Faye placed her hand on the butt of her Glock and knocked again.

"Come in," the voice repeated. It was a man's voice. It sounded kind of warm and inviting, but then anything sounded warm and inviting with the Christmas Song playing. 

Faye swallowed and opened the door. And there she was, staring into a chintzy yet festively decorated apartment, complete with tacky metallic tinsel and cut out shapes of Christmas type paraphernalia. And there, standing in the middle of it, was a man she recognized as Charlie Dillon.


	12. Here We Come aWassailing

Here We Come a-Wassailing

__

Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green;  
Here we come a-wandering, so fair to be seen.  
We have a little purse made of ratching leather skin;  
We want a little sixpence to line it well within. 

Christmas Eve 2068

Faye's first job, that she could remember anyway, was for the Tharsis Cheesecake Mill. She was a delivery person. She thought that was a reasonable career track. After all, if she had any particular work skills, she couldn't remember them. She didn't think she could type exceptionally fast. She had a minimal knowledge of computer operating systems. She was never particularly good with people. She rediscovered that after her first (and last) shift waitressing in a 24-hour diner. Turns out smashing a pancake in a particularly rude patrons face does not do wonders for the ol' tip jar.

But she was a decent delivery person. She pretty much got a tip just by showing up, and if it was a man, she usually got a little extra just for being a woman. And after a few shaky lessons, she was pretty good at flying. She wasn't particularly good at parking where she was supposed to park or avoiding hitting things like streetlights during take off. But she discovered in those days that she in fact had a decent pair of boobs and that traffic cops seemed to be some of their most staunch admirers. So she was a Cheesecake Mill Delivery Girl and she worked for Mr. Charlie Dillon. 

And they must have been really good cheesecakes. People paid insane amounts of money for them. And though the majority of the cheesecakes were going to people's Grandmas and wives and things, some people just seemed to want a cheesecake right then and in that second. Like they were sitting watching TV and decided that, hey. A cheesecake would go really great with this six pack and ordered it like they were ordering a pizza. Faye always thought that was a little weird. But everyone's got a vice. For some people, it was apparently cheesecake.

"That's a little steep for a pound and a half of cream cheese, isn't it Charlie?" Faye blew a stray bang out of her eye as she looked over the invoice. "I mean, even for us."

"It's Christmas Eve. And he asked for a rush order. It's only natural to gouge 'em. People expect it," he shrugged.

Faye shot him a scolding sort of glare that Charlie was used to. "As long as this guy has enough money left over for tip. Gas isn't free, you know."

"Quit your bitching. You get gas money," he waved her off.

"Yeah. And the 50 woolongs a week you give me might be useful if that piece of crap got more than 2K to the gallon."

Charlie puffed up a bit in the ship's defense. "Hey. The Redtail is a classic. I will have no one talking smack about her in my presence."

Faye rolled her eyes as she grabbed a small stack of pink boxes from the counter. "Well, I'm off."

__

Please go around back.

Faye cocked her head at the sloppily written note Scotch taped to the front door. Go around back? She glanced down at the receipt and realized that this was the particularly expensive cake. The last minute order. She heard someone clear their throat and her stomach jumped about 6 inches up in her chest. She turned and watched as an old man shuffled past. "Merry Christmas!" he said cheerily.

Faye waved back with an uncertain smile. Why was she so jumpy? Faye wasn't usually someone who was jumpy for no reason. Something about this whole scenario wasn't right. She descended slowly down the front stoop when she noticed a parked car suddenly start up and drive around the back of the building. She didn't notice anyone get into the car. Were they waiting there this whole time?

She was so focused on trying to figure out where that car was off to that she didn't notice the garden hose sprawled out across the sidewalk. Her toe caught it and she crashed to the pavement, the cheesecake breaking her fall. "Shit," she muttered as she tried to wipe some errant cheesecake off of her chin. She sat upright and inspected the box. It actually wasn't that bad. Her face just managed to catch the bottom corner. The good thing about cheesecake was that it was pliable. She bet she could just smear it back together with her fingers.

She flipped the top open and was about to perform some emergency surgery when she saw something that made her want to throw up. There, nestled inside a protective layer of satiny smooth goodness, were several vials of bloody eye. She gasped and slammed the box shut. "That's a little steep for cheesecake, isn't it Charlie?" she said out loud in a mocking voice. God, she was such an idiot. She must have had the word "patsy" permanently tattooed on her forehead, magically visible to everyone but herself.

And she was being set up. She knew it wasn't technically her that was being set up. It was Charlie. But it wouldn't matter. They never go straight for the top with these things. They just start chipping away at the bottom and that was her. Christ, she was a drug dealer!! What the hell was she supposed to do?

Run. She was supposed to run. And after taking a deep breath, she did. She grabbed the evidence and high tailed it to her ship, never once looking back until she was safely in the air. When she thought she was a reasonable distance away, she tossed the pastry box out the window and it hit the windshield of a car with a satisfying splat.

Now what? She wondered briefly how many times the average person was supposed to completely start over in her lifetime. She figured she had to hold some sort of record. She leaned dejectedly back into the seat of the Redtail and kicked the glove compartment in a fit of frustration. The thing popped open, revealing the yellow manila envelope she used as a cash box. Oh yeah. The cash box. She forgot about that. She eagerly counted it up and found it was close to 15,000 woolongs. Well, that was a start.

And now, three years later, she was staring at the one person she never thought she'd see again. "What the hell do you want?" she asked him, swallowing her disappointment in favor of morbid curiosity.

"About 15,000 woolongs. Or a three year old cheesecake. Whichever you prefer." 


	13. Chestnuts Roasting

Chestnuts Roasting

__

Everybody knows some turkey and some mistletoe

Help to make the season bright

Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow

Will find it hard to sleep tonight

Charlie Dillon looked his ex-employee up and down with a curious expression. She was different. She had a bit of the same spunky look about her but she looked thicker somehow. Sturdy. He always felt like if he exhaled too hard around her she would topple over back in those days, but now she seemed to be nailed firmly to the ground. "Are you kidding me?" she asked him. She seemed bored, which made Charlie wonder how often she had found herself in similar situations since he saw her last. Naïve, plucky, little Faye. Wielding a gun and ready for business.

"I need it," he said curtly.

"I don't have it." Faye looked around and realized that this might have actually been Dillon's apartment. There was a black and white movie playing on the television and a half gnawed on cylinder of cranberry sauce on the coffee table. He had some sorry Christmas lights strung around and a mechanical Santa that swung its hips to salsa music. 

"You better have it," he warned her, bringing her attention back on him. "I've got several Syndicates on my ass for a whole lot of cash. They are probably watching the joint as we speak."

Faye squinted at him, as if this could somehow determine if he was bluffing. Then she backed cautiously to the window and peeked out the blinds. The second she did so she noticed the blinds across the street flip shut. "Well, that's great, Charlie. That's just great. Now I'll be a witness to a Syndicate hit, as if I don't have enough problems."

"Do you have it?" he asked again, a pleading expression on his face.

"No, I don't have it! Nice card, by the way. Asshole."

"Sorry about that," he said muttered and sat down at the kitchen table, watching the dancing Santa with a strange expression. He was obviously under the influence of something or other. "But I knew you wouldn't come other wise. Look," he added, tapping his fingers on the table. "Let's say I'm not here to collect. Let's say I'm here to ask you for a loan."

Faye shook her head. Man, this guy was desperate. He hadn't spoken to her or probably thought of her for years and he lured her here with the intention of borrowing money. She wondered how far down the list of hopefuls she was. Probably pretty far. "I don't have it, Dillon. And if I did, I would use it to get my own ass out of trouble, not to help out dirty old men who scam 20 year old kids into making drug deals."

He winced at the accusation, a bit taken by the impact of hearing his actions expressed out loud and stripped of his own rationalization. "I still thought about you sometimes, you know," he said in a low voice. He wasn't lying. "Wondered what happened to you after that night. Always thought you were a good kid. Didn't really deserve…you know. What you got."

"You mean what you gave me?"

Charlie gave her his buyer-beware shrug. "I was just taking advantage of the situation. It's only natural to gouge 'em."

"Lucky it's Christmas Eve," Faye said evenly. "I expect it."

There was darkness to her voice that made Charlie smile a little. Little Faye was all grown up. He sighed and stopped tapping his fingers. "You really don't have it, Faye?" Faye shook her head. A strange expression of utter calm then washed over his face, a certain resolve permeating in his heavily dosed eyes. "Well, then," he said softly. "I would duck."

No sooner than he said it than the window behind them exploded. Faye hit the deck as Charlie Dillon calmly let the bullets tear him, and his dancing Santa, to shreds. When both were satisfactorily destroyed, the shooting seemed to cease. Faye paused for a moment under the table, and then quickly crept along the floor towards the door, making it a point to sidestep around her old boss. God, she hated bodies. She decided her New Year's resolution would be to be around less of them. A mortician hangs out with livelier crowds.

She stood up and put her hand on the door just as it flew open, knocking her backwards a couple feet. Startled, she instinctively fired her gun mid-flight, and was rewarded with an embarrassed yelp and a violent thud. She peeked over her kneecap after she crash landed on the hardwood floor and saw a suit sprawled out in the hallway in a similar position. His arm was bleeding. 

They regarded each other for a moment, not entirely sure on what just happened and equally clueless as to what to do next. The suit kind of cocked his head in curiosity at Faye, and this lopsided, unreadable smile crossed his face. It only lasted a moment, though, and then he was reaching for his gun.

Faye slid across the floor and slammed the door shut. By some miraculous stroke of timing, the door flew shut just as the suit was planning to rise to his feet. This put him at a perfect angle to get cracked in the forehead with the doorknob, and the door bounced recklessly off his skull to slam right back into Faye's shoulder. "Ow!" she whined, and then she noticed that it was very quiet.

She peeked around the door to see the hit man lying stunned in the doorway. She couldn't help but take a moment to marvel at the absurdity of her good luck, then decided that the window was the next best route of escape. She had barely turned around, however, before she felt someone grab her ankle. Before Faye could even register what was happening, she had hit the floor with an ungraceful thud, sending her own weapon flying. She twisted herself around and saw that the hit man had made a miraculous recovery from his run in with the doorknob.

He was playing dead, she thought. How droll.

In a motion that was jarringly snake like, the man shot the entire length of his body on top of hers, pressing her own body to the floor. "You couldn't have picked a worse time to come a wassailing, girlie," he grinned, his breath moist and sickening on Faye's neck. 

She attempted to wriggle free but he grabbed her leg and yanked her fiercely back on the ground. What was he going to do to her? If he wanted to kill her he could have done it by now. She looked briefly into his eyes and was momentarily thrown by the amusement glinting inside them. She got the feeling this was becoming more a matter of pleasure than business, and her eyes narrowed with steely resolve at the thought. In a flash of movement so slick it even startled her, Faye grabbed the gun from off her opponent's holster and smashed the butt of it into his nose.

The man cried out in a shocked falsetto and Faye squealed as she was covered in a torrent of hot, sticky, red liquid. She took a moment to gather her wits about her before she scrambled out from under him and cracked the gun into the back of his head. Clunk. His eyes crossed as he fell to the floor. Faye stood over him with her weapon aimed squarely at his head in case he wanted to try his little ruse a second time. He didn't stir. 

Faye knew that it was probably prudent to shoot him but she was not really in the state of mind to be taking human life. It was hard to switch from a craving for eggnog to a lust for blood seamlessly. She sighed deeply as she took one last glance around the room. Cranberry sauce, tinsel, a plastic snowman…a dead guy and an unconscious hit man…

__

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings, the TV reminded her in the now otherwise silent room. 

"Oh yeah?" she sighed as she stooped down to retrieve her Glock. "And what do they do when a gun goes off?"


	14. If I Had a Boat

****

Jet's Christmas

If I Had a Boat

__

The mystery masked man was smart  
He got himself a Tonto  
'Cause Tonto did the dirty work for free  
But Tonto he was smarter  
And one day said "Kemosabe,  
Kiss my ass, I bought a boat  
I'm going out to sea"  


Ed fell asleep immediately after dinner. Immediately. No sooner than the last bite of green bean casserole was shoveled into her mouth, then she wandered over to the couch and passed out. Boom. Asleep. Just like that.

Jet stared at her for a second, amazed. It was like narcolepsy except on cue. He then shifted his attention to the table for a bit, letting his eyes pass over the remains of the holiday. There was turkey. There was stuffing. There was some sort of pie. He bought the pie. Couldn't remember what it was. He was pretty sure it was some sort of berry. And they were all sitting there in their original containers, turning the table into what was essentially the world's most deluxe TV dinner. Meal for 1. The staple of every bachelor's diet.

He didn't even like green bean casserole. It annoyed him on a personal level that those little onion crunchies existed for the express purpose of topping green bean casserole. Faye had insisted on green bean casserole. She just came home sans wine but plus a can of onion crunchies. She said her mom made it for her. She said she just "had a feeling."

She never touched the green bean casserole. And Jet needed to go for a walk.

__

It was strange, he decided after a few drinks. The dynamic on the ship. Jet had never really worked in groups before. People weren't pack animals, he decided. They worked best in pairs. That's why you don't have teams of cops. Things just never work out. 

Everyone always sort of paired off on the Bebop. If it wasn't Spike and Jet against Faye than it was Faye and Spike against Jet. They were a more formidable team than they were willing to admit. And sometimes, Jet knew, it was even Faye and Jet vs. Spike. He didn't like this tag team bullshit. He liked it when it was Spike and Jet vs. the World. Or even Jet and Alyssa. Or Jet and Fad. This Jet and Assorted Others didn't really sit with him well. And he wasn't even sure how it happened. One second he and Spike were settled in a comfortable rut and the next he was running Noah's damn Ark. Two of every freak imaginable. And he couldn't even figure out what parts of this life he hated and which ones he liked or if they were one and the same. 

He just needed to be alone. It was a popular sentiment that no one was supposed to be alone on Christmas. But hell, it was really just another day. And though he certainly had nothing against Jesus, he liked to keep a respectful distance. He seemed a smart guy but Jet realized that night that taking part in things bigger than yourself was just asking for trouble. Keep it small. Do your own time. That was the lesson.

Jet wandered the streets for a bit, idly listening to his comm. He still kept tabs on the force communiqués. He couldn't help it. It was nostalgic and strangely soothing. It was like a sort of emotional white noise, a pleasant buzz that gently reminded him of a distant age. But even the Comm was pretty dead tonight. There was some scuffle outside a bar but it seemed to be stopped easy enough. There were a few cases of domestic disputes. Nothing big.

Then there was a report of a break in. And then another. And another. Followed by the announcement that all should be on the look out for the…Santito Banditos? Due to a shortage of manpower over the holiday, they had already let a leak out to the bounty hunting community. Jet was just about to mutter out loud how ridiculous that whole transmission was when he saw him. Santa Claus.

Santa did not go down the chimney. He did not have reindeer. He just crawled out from under the porch. It seemed this Santa was a little less dignified then the Jolly St. Nick of yore. He also seemed to be drunk. Jet rolled his eyes as he approached the intruder. "Freeze," he grumbled, his gun drawn just maliciously enough to be a threat to a drunken guy in a Santa costume.

Santa froze, his dilated pupils bugging nervously out of his head. "I-I don't want any trouble.." he stuttered. He took a nervous step back and tripped over some unidentified fuzzy lump. The lump whined in protest, and Jet thought he recognized the distinct sound of canine discourse. He leaned in for a closer inspection and found that this particular fuzzy lump fancied drinking out of his toilet. He looked up to see Ed, or at least Spike's jacket and a hat, swinging from a drain pipe. Ed almost squealed his name in delight, as she always did when she ran into one of her friends, but knew that she might be in a bit of trouble. So for the moment, she declined to say anything.

Jet just took a moment to take in this scene before he rubbed his sinuses and asked…"What the hell?"

"We're making a statement!" Santa said quickly. Jet noticed Ed nod her head frantically in agreement from somewhere inside that scarf. "Screw capitalism! Up with people!"

"By breaking into people's houses?!?"

"Yes!" Santa cried, but then looked confused. "No. I mean, yeah but we're not taking stuff. We're spreading the wealth. We're like…Robin Hood!"

Jet continued to stare blankly at the jolly intoxicated man before him and then directed his attention to Ed. "Well?" he asked her.

"Santa," Ed said in an almost embarrassed tone. "Not Robin Hood. Santa. Santa gives stuff to people but this time the Mall took stuff from Santa. So Ed and New Friend Person are giving stuff back."

Santa nodded and then summed up his story. Jet's face was totally impassive the whole time, even as he flipped on his Comm to call the station. "Jet!" Ed snapped at him angrily.

"I have to, Ed," Jet said quickly.

"Why?!?" she stamped her foot on the brink of tantrum. 

"Because the two of you are gonna get shot if you keep this up, that's why! They got the whole damn station looking for you jackasses. You're lucky I found you first. Besides," Jet added. "Between you and me there is no way your boss is gonna press charges. You're like the god damned human interest story of the year. But I ain't gonna chase you, bud. You can come with me or you can get shot down by the bounty hunters who are gonna be after your ass in about fifteen minutes."

Santa seemed to consider this for a moment before he held his hands out in front of him. "Cuff me," he barked.


	15. Oi to the World

Oi, to the World

__

If God came down to Earth today

I'd know exactly what he'd say

He'd say, Oi, to the punks

And Oi to the skins

But Oi, to the world

So everybody wins

Everyone down at the station thought Santa was the funniest thing they had ever seen. It was made even more comical by the fact that it was gruff, bad ass, Black Dog, that brought 'em in. "What are you trying out for a buddy cop picture?" one of the guys ribbed Jet good-naturedly. "What do you get when you take a jaded street cop, a cute kid, a cuter dog and Santa?" he imitated a movie preview announcer. "Find out this Friday, when Book 'Em, Santo opens at a theatre near you!"

"All right, all right," Jet rolled his eyes. "Ed! Stop that! That's not a toy!"

Ed had already gotten into the fingerprint blotter, as evidenced by Ein's new war paint, and was currently investigating a can of mace. "So what, should we call his boss?" another officer asked as he shielded his face from a cloud of pepper spray just shot in his direction. "Jet, control your ward!" he snapped.

Ed was about to spray some pepper spray in her mouth, thinking it might be kind of tangy, when Jet grabbed her by the waist and cuffed her to a coat rack. "Knock it off," he intoned before he rejoined his ex-comrades at the desk.

"You know the freaks always come out on Christmas," another officer sighed as he leaned up on the counter. "I got a call in from the 36th saying they picked up a guy with like…a sword wound or something. Barely even fazed him, too."

Jet raised his eyebrow. "Sword?"

"Yeah, isn't that weird? Like this is feudal Japan or some shit," he scratched his head.

"This guy…he didn't happen to have brown eyes, green hair and was about 10 feet tall, 70 pounds, was he?"

The other officer looked at him strangely. "I think that kinda fits the description."

Jet pounded his forehead on the table before asking, "Who's got him?"

"Statler. Why?"

"That's my damned partner," Jet grumbled as he dialed the precinct on his comm. 

"Are you sure?" the younger officer asked him.

"Of course I'm sure. Who the hell else would have a sword wound on Christmas Eve?" Jet paused, not entirely sure if he was amused or pissed, before he asked, "What do they have him for, anyway? Did they blow up a bus load of nuns or something?"

The officer shook his head. "Nah, they must've ditched their…swords or…whatever. They just got him on assault."

"Son of a bitch," Jet grumbled and then snapped angrily at the receptionist at the 36th by accident. That was rude. He didn't really mean it. 

"Jet person mad?" Ed asked.

"Hell yeah, I'm mad!" he said. "Half my crew is in jail! And you might as well keep the TV on ISSP's Most Wanted cause I still got a third one unaccounted for."

Jet knew Statler from back in the day so finagling Spike out of custody was pretty easy. It was just the principle of the thing. That he had to finagle not one but two partners out of the slammer on Christmas Eve.

There was that Christmas Eve thing again. Jet rolled his eyes inwardly at himself, almost ashamed he let himself get wrapped up in this overly commercialized mess. Who cared if it was Christmas Eve? Are things somehow more significant if greeting cards are involved? Of course not! He was smarter than that, and certainly more jaded. It shouldn't matter what day of the year he had to bail two roommates out of prison, it should warrant the same amount of irritation whether it was his birthday, Arbor Day or Interplanetary Pancake Week. Christmas Eve was no different. Suddenly, as if Ed could read his mind, she asked, "What's the big deal, anyway?" Jet was pretty sure he knew what she meant but asked for clarification anyway. "With this day," she said as she kicked a rock along the snow with her over-sized boot. "Why does this day make persons act so funny?"

"Well…I guess that depends on who you ask," Jet shrugged. 

"So, Ed's asking you," Ed pointed out.

Jet shot her a look he usually reserved for his senior partners before he sighed and attempted to organize some train of thought. It had been years since he had been to church and he wasn't even sure he could tell the story properly. "Ok. Well, see…thousands of years ago, this kid was born. And everyone was so happy about it they all got together and bought presents and traveled for miles just to see him. Just to drop in and pay respects and get together and sing Hosannas or whatever it was that they did. Maybe there was dessert. I don't know."

"How come?"

"Well, again, that depends on who you ask. But someone thought it was a good idea cause now everyone does it. You know. Get together once a year to have dessert and exchange presents and do the Hosanna thing."

"Hosanna?" Ed scrunched her nose up at the unfamiliar word.

"Yeah," Jet shrugged. He had vague memories of the word popping up in the chorus of several songs his mother made him sing during the services. "It's some Biblical-type thing. I think it's some holy rollin' way of saying hooray. Hooray for…life, I guess. Which is why people freak out, I think. Sometimes it's hard to find stuff to yell Hosanna about and the pressure's kind of on to come up with something. It looks bad if you can't."

Ed nodded. "Spike Person is OK," she reminded him.

"I know."

"And Faye-Faye will come back."

"She always does," he muttered disdainfully.

"So…." Ed prompted her roommate.

Jet was not following. "So…so what?"

"So…Hosanna!" she said with a little leap into the air.

Jet started at her for a moment before chuckling and rubbing his head. "Hosanna," he admitted reluctantly. And maybe that was it. Maybe that was everyone's problem. People treat this day like some sort of emotional balance sheet. A statistical snapshot of the current state of affairs that will predict the outcome of the rest of the year. If you couldn't get it together on one measly day, and on cue, what shot did the rest of the year have? 

Truth was, he had no way of knowing what lay ahead. And whatever it was that happened, it certainly wouldn't rest on whether or not they had a proper dinner. The only thing he was certain of was that this past year had been the craziest, weirdest, most screwed up, unpredictable, laugh a minute, never a dull moment, buckle up, batten down the hatches and alert the next of kin year he had ever had in his whole life. And how many people could say that? None. No one could have possibly have witnessed the exact combination of bad experiences, strange phenomenon and cataclysmic combustion of personalities that he did. And he somehow survived it.

And if whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, than he was living to be 200. So Hosanna. Hosanna in the friggen' highest.


	16. Bridge

Bridge

__

There's a rose in a fisted glove

And the eagle flies with the dove

And if you can't be with the one you love…

A part of Spike had been missing Julia all along. But it wasn't really an active feeling. There was a bit of him that was never quite right since she had left, a change his very nature that was small and subtle, but still there. He didn't have to be thinking about her to miss her. He was just different when she wasn't around.

But tonight… he missed her. Really missed her, in ordinary, less abstract ways. He missed her laugh and he missed the way she jiggled her foot when she was nervous and the fact that she asked for everyone's pickle at the diner. And he missed kissing her. He never considered himself a Casanova but for some reason, everything went smoothly when he was with her. He couldn't make an awkward move if he wanted to. They just fit. Damn, he missed fitting. 

It was really the first time in ages that he had a physical need to be near her, that his whole body ached with longing and helplessness. He hated it. He really hated it. He didn't need this now. He just didn't need this. 

But oddly…he wanted it. He shuddered a bit as a gust of wind managed to swoop in through his jacket and he hugged the fabric lamely around his body. He looked up and found he had wandered in front of a church. There was some choir music drifting softly out of it, the midnight mass, and it had a ghostly quality he found appropriate to his mood. He sighed and sunk down on the steps. He was suddenly feeling very weak and very tired and just generally spent. He wasn't sure how long he was sitting on the steps of the cathedral before someone called his name. He looked up and saw Faye standing there. 

It was pure coincidence. Faye had some wild impulse to go to church after her run in with the mob. She wasn't even sure she was Catholic but it somehow seemed like a good idea. She never expected to see him there. And she certainly never expected him to look at her quite the way he did. The second their eyes met she knew that his day had not gone any better than hers. Normally, she would take some amount of pleasure in this. Their relationship was an on-going competition after all, and it would have upset her to know he had a better anything than her, including a better Christmas. But today, when she saw his face, the last thing she wanted to do was gloat. She just wanted to wrap her arms around him and say she was sorry everything was so messed up and that they couldn't catch a break and that nothing ever worked out for them the way it should. She wanted to cry on his shoulder because she just felt like a good cry, and you couldn't properly have a good cry unless you did it on someone's shoulder.

But she didn't do any of those things. Instead she just sat down next to him and offered him a cigarette, which in their world, was almost as good as a hug. He stared at the outstretched smoke and then back at her. A hint of gratitude shown briefly in those Sad Sam eyes of his as he accepted her offering. They both sparked up and sat on the steps of the church in complete and utter silence, watching the snowflakes gather on their sleeves and half-heartedly looking for pairs. Then Spike noticed, "You're bleeding."

"It's not mine," she said in a tiny voice

Spike could tell she was waiting for him to ask what happened. He wasn't going to, though. He truthfully did not want to know and whatever happened couldn't have been too awful because she was sitting there, relatively unharmed. So he just nodded and continued to smoke. This must of irritated her, because on some desperate last ditch effort for attention, she blurted out, "Do you believe in a divine plan?"

Spike snorted. "What, you mean like destiny?"

"No. Well, maybe. I dunno. Like if there is some sort of reason this crap keeps happening. You know? Like someone somewhere has got this all figured out and that one day we'll look back on this and it's going to make sense. Like we'll say, 'Ooooooh. So _that's_ why. It was all a rich tapestry." 

"The tapestry of us getting screwed?"

"Exactly," Faye paused for a second and mentally went over what she had just said. "Ok, I know that sounded a little crazy."

"Just a tad."

"But I think it's even crazier to just chalk my life up to bad luck. No one has this much bad luck. Someone is testing me."

Spike shrugged. "I'm pretty sure just about everyone feels that way, Faye."

She shook her head adamantly. "No. No, there's a reason for this. There has to be."

Spike's mouth turned up at an odd little angle that was a bastard child of a smile and a smirk. "Don't go looking for reasons, Faye," he advised good naturedly. "There are no reasons. Getting screwed is just part of the human condition. Every day you decide to get out of bed is a crapshoot and the house always wins." 

Faye thought about this for a moment. "So essentially what you're saying is…God is the dealer in the casino of life."

Now it was Spike's turn to mull over the latest bit of nonsense to be spawned from this conversation. "I dunno," he admitted. "I guess so."

Faye seemed to inexplicably brighten at this revelation. "Well, that's good news," she said.

"How do you figure?" Spike asked her. He actually just managed to further depress himself with that little nugget and wondered how being cosmically shysted on a daily basis could be a comfort.

"Because," she said slyly. "I cheat."

Spike stared at her for a second. He stared and then he smiled. What else could he do but smile at this ridiculous creature beside him that was somehow shuffled into his deck? He looked for a second as if he was going to say something. But whatever it was, he decided against it and instead shifted his gaze to the endless sky. Even though man had officially tamed the final frontier, it could still make you feel small. He actually kind of liked that feeling. He still liked it. 

But most of all, he liked the fact that there was a crazy person sitting next to him feeling just as small as he did. There was something comforting about that. He turned to Faye, his fellow insignificant speck, his comrade, his competition and his evil twin and said, "Let's go home already."

__

Honey, love the ones you're with


	17. Epilogue

Epilogue

__

You say I took the name in vain   
But I don't even know the name   
And if I did, well really, what's it to ya'?   
There's a blaze of light in every word   
It doesn't matter which you heard   
The holy or the broken Hallelujah 

Spike and Faye skulked into the hanger dreading the lecture that was surely about to ensue. Spike especially. The fact that Jet had to call in a favor on his account didn't really bode well for his case. Jet considered his connections a sacred thing. You didn't pull strings like that on a whim, only when it was really important. Spike was essentially picked up for getting into a scrape on the schoolyard. More stupid than important, if you were to look at it objectively. Which Jet always did.

But Jet didn't say anything when they walked in. He just indicated to the fridge. "There's some leftovers in there," he grumbled. 

Faye went to investigate but Spike, oddly enough, didn't feel much like eating. He walked in a semi-daze over to the couch. "Off," he shushed Ed out of the way. She obediently hopped onto the floor and he belly flopped onto the upholstery.

"Vicious?" Jet asked him.

"Yes," Spike said, his voice muffled in the cushions. Faye suddenly peeked out of the refrigerator in curiosity. So it really had been a bad Christmas for Spike. She wondered who had the worse one. She decided she would strike up the argument later that evening, all the while thinking of certain embellishments that would secure her victory. 

Jet just rubbed the top of head and then clucked disapprovingly at Spike's arm. "Jesus. Who bandaged that up?"

"The secretary at the 36th," Spike mumbled, face still buried in the sofa.

"Do you want me to look at that? They did a shit ass job."

"Naaaahhhh," Spike sighed, rolling onto his back so that he could have a proper conversation. "It's not that bad. A love nip, really."

Jet gave him an incredulous look and then shifted his attention back on the TV. It was one of those movie of the week things, Not Without My Fill in the Blank, and the acting was just bad enough to distract everyone from their current woes. Faye soon plopped down on the floor beside them to watch, Spike occasionally picking off her plate from over her shoulder, nimbly dodging her attempts to stab him with her fork.

When it seemed as though the over the top melodramatics had lured everyone into a considerable stupor, Ed snuck her way out of the Bebop. She had one more contingency plan to shake the holiday up a bit and she wasn't ready to quit on her roommates yet. Now it was about winning. She couldn't allow this day to end with lukewarm leftovers and television for woman. After a fun filled evening of petty crimes and misdemeanors, it would be too anti-climatic.

So when the final credits rolled, she slunk back on to the ship and positioned herself with an air of importance in front of the television. Everyone was about to tell her to sit down when she asked, "Bebop-Bebop ready for presents?"

"Presents?" Jet asked in a low voice, his trepidation obvious.

Ed grinned in a way that made everyone nervous. "It's Christmas, isn't it? What's Christmas without presents?"

"Finally, somebody gets it!" Faye said, exasperated. "Material things. That's what this holiday is about. So where are they, Ed?" she said excitedly, rubbing her hands together with greed.

"Outside," Ed said cheerily, and then curled herself into a little ball and proceeded to roll out of the Bebop, singing Jingle Bells Batman Smells the whole way.

Faye rocketed to her feet to follow her, about half a gate shy of skipping. The boys, however, were visibly apprehensive as they brought up the rear. "So…what are you thinking?" Spike muttered to Jet. "Pagan sacrifices or something?"

Jet just sighed. "Here's hoping."

After Ed herded them neatly into a little group, she put on her goggles and picked up what looked like a small detonator. "Uh…" Spike and Jet both began in protest but it was already too late.

"Happy Christmas!" Ed shrieked as she pressed the red button. 

A blinding light suddenly materialized out of thin air, accompanied with a loud popping noise. The crew ducked, seriously expecting the end of days. But to their surprise they remained decidedly un-obliterated. Slowly they opened their eyes to see Ed's present.

The entire ship was covered in Christmas lights. Covered doesn't even do it justice. It was engulfed. Enveloped. Submerged in Christmas lights. Once their eyes adjusted, one could make out the even bigger travesty. The Bebop was not only painted red and green, but was covered in what appeared to be some sort of mural. 

Spike shielded his eyes as he attempted to get a closer look. "Ed, you wanna kill the lights a bit? I appreciate the drama and all, but I think my eye just blew a fuse." Ed shot him a look that she seemed to have picked up from Faye and then shifted a lever on her box. The level of light decreased from blinding to annoying. "Hey…" Spike said cocking his head curiously at the ship. "That's us." 

Ed had painted the entire crew in all their glory right on the side of the ship. They were crude interpretations to be sure, Spike only really identifiable by the green glob slapped on the top of his head. Faye also had globs in all the right places, which was the only difference between her and Ed's self-portrait, aside from the hair color. Jet had an apron on, which Spike imagined was difficult for a stick figure to sport properly and Ein was sleeping next to his dog dish. Or rather, next to a red rectangle Spike assumed represented his dog dish.

"Does Bebop like?" Ed asked.

All eyes turned to Jet, who had been staring blankly at the ship the whole time in a state of near catatonia. He opened and closed his mouth a little bit, but could only really make little sputtering sounds. "Wh…Wha…Wh…"

Faye slapped the back of his head to jump-start him. "What paint did you use?" he finally spit out.

"The paint in the back," Ed shrugged, "The ones that said Super Permanent! Resilient to rust, water and nuclear holocaust!" she said enthusiastically.

Spike actually covered his mouth to keep from busting out laughing as he looked back and forth between Ed and Jet. "Does Jet not like?" Ed asked innocently.

"Jet…likes," Jet spoke as if he was constipated. "Jet likes so much, that Jet is going inside to think about how much he likes it." And with that, he turned and walked back into the ship. Only a few seconds past before a primal scream could be heard coming from the recesses of the newly fabulous Bebop.

Spike and Faye absolutely lost it. They laughed so hard their stomachs hurt and they both collapsed helplessly to the ground. Every time it looked as though they could calm down enough to catch a breath, they'd catch a fleeting glance of the ship and start right back up again. Finally, though, the guffaws managed to dwindle to a low roar, which dissipated into giggles, which finally petered out into merry little gasps for air. "Spike and Faye like?" Ed asked slyly.

"Like it?" he asked, coughing a bit from the strain laughing put on his nicotine riddled lungs. "That was the single greatest thing I have ever seen." He was still lying on his back in the snow, hardly aware of the numbness slowly creeping it's way down the back of his neck. 

Faye, however, was not really dressed for such activities and lazily rolled back onto her feet in order to check the ship out in more detail. She thought the mural made her look kind of fat. Now it was Faye's turn to be a little apprehensive over a permanent monument. "You didn't really use permanent paint, did you Ed?" she asked.

Ed smiled a little guiltily and lobbed a plastic bottle in Faye's direction. It was a bottle of child's finger paint. Faye smirked and then ran her finger across the side of the ship, leaving a little smear in her wake. She held her dirty finger up to show Spike. "It'll be gone the next time it rains," she said. Then her eyes lit up with a mischievous twinkle as she realized little Edward just snowed Jet for their own amusement. "My God," she said, shaking her head in wonder. "It's true what they say. There are things better than money."

Ed shrugged her shoulders with a sheepish expression. Making Jet blow a valve wasn't in the original plan. "When Ed saw Jet Person's face," she admitted. "Ed could not resist. You do like it though, right?"

Spike finally summoned the energy to join the girls, still chuckling a bit at all that had just come to pass. "Ed," he said theatrically. "You are my hero." He held his hand up over his head and Ed gamely leapt into the air to slap it, getting over her guilt in time to bask in the warm glow of acceptance. 

"Ha. Ha." Jet suddenly grumbled from behind them. He was standing in the archway of the hatch with his arms folded, but he was laughing. Maybe not outwardly, but they could see it in his eyes. "Gang up on the old fart. Everyone's favorite holiday tradition."

The three of them just stared at him like three kids who just got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. Jet sighed as he descended the stairs to get a look at the mural when he wasn't distracted by blinding, animalistic rage. He lit up a cigarette and the crew took in Ed's masterpiece with a goofy, casual sort of reverence. "You know…" Jet said at last, placing his hands behind his head. "It really is a good mural."

__

HALLELUJAH

Yeah, so the "serious artist" in me said I should leave it with the last chapter but the goofy idiot in me said silly ending. Considering it's fanfiction I'm writing here, the "serious artist" was already fighting a losing battle.

Non-traditional music credits go to The Waitresses (Christmas Wrappings), Depeche Mode (Personal Jesus), Rogers and Hammerstein (Something Good), Gwen Stephani and Elvis Costello (Throw My Toys Around), REM (Monty Got a Raw Deal), Lyle Lovvitt (If I Had a Boat), The Vandalls (Oi to the World) Crosby, Stills and Nash (Love the One You're With), and Leonard Cohen (Hallelujah).

Well, kids. This is it. I was debating for a long time whether or not I should even post this one. I wasn't sure it was going to work and I'm still not sure that it did, but it was a grand and interesting experiment nonetheless. This whole shebang was a grand experiment. And what exactly did I learn?

Well, I'm not really sure on that point either. I just hope that I managed to entertain a few people as much as I entertained myself.

So thanks everyone. Thanks for reading and reviewing and yelling at me and laughing at me and scratching their head in bewilderment at me and of course an extra special thanks to everyone who is hosting me somewhere in the vastness of the Internet. Everyone has been very cool. Much cooler than I deserve, really. 

So signing off as your humble narrator for the last time (and I seriously mean it now. I got nothing else collecting dust in the hard drive)….

Agent Orange out.


End file.
